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His Last Voyage 




HERBERT LAWRENCE BRIDGMAN 
1844 :: 1924 






THE STANDARD UNION 
BROOKLYN. N.Y. 






SIFT 

FEB S® 



Photo by Gessford 


HERBERT LAWRENCE BRIDGMAN 




HIS LAST VOYAGE 


Herbert Lawrence Bridgman, business manager of The Brooklyn Standard Union for thirty- 
fve years, Regent of the University of the State of New York since ipiy, and president of the 
executive council of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity for forty-one years, died suddenly at sea on Sep¬ 
tember 24, 1^24. 

Dr. Bridgman had sailed on a summer-long cruise aboard the New York State Schoolship 
Nezvport. A famous explorer and traveler, he had eagerly accepted the opportunity to represent 
the State Regents aboard the ship which was their especial charge. From England, from the bat¬ 
tlefields of Belgium, from Spain, from Madeira and Teneriffe, came to his newspaper character¬ 
istically spirited accounts of his adventuring with the schoolboys of the nautical academy. 

It was his last voyage, and these letters were his last writings. 

This volume has been compiled as a tribute to his memory, as also a recognition of messages 
of sympathy. It contains : 

The twelve letters to his home newspaper written aboard the Newport; 

A tribute to Dr. Bridgman by Capt. Felix Riesenberg, commander of the Newport, with 
whom he spent his last days; 

An account of his passing and an outline of his career, by an editorial associate; 

Editorial tributes from the newspapers, and from the Bulletin of the State University; 

An account of a notable memorial meeting conducted by the Psi Upsilon Fraternity on its 
Founders’ Day; 

A tribute by the Rev. Howard Dean French, of the Church of the Pilgrims, and 

A ‘‘Farewell,” by his widow, Helen Bartlett Bridgman. 


5 



jC-V 


V. 


- 



(The following letters were written by Dr. Bridgman on the cruise of the Newport for 
piibiication in The Standard TJuion. The first ten appeared in August and September; the 
last two, found among his papers, in October.) 

WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS ON THEIR 
ANNUAL NOR TH ATL ANTIC CRUISE 

Story of X)oyage Out of the Sound Into the Ocean—An Impressive Tribute of Sympathy 
to President and Mrs. Coolidge — One Day’s Work, on the Schoolship—A Saturday 
Inspection, Which Is the Real Thing. . 


1 . 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

N. Y. State Nautical Schoolship “Newport” 

At Sea, July 14, 1924 
Lat. 400 24/ N; Long. 44o 33/ W.. 

That was our position at noon to-day, and if you 
are enough of a navigator to figure it out, you will 
understand that it is only about ten miles or so north¬ 
east of the point where the only public school now in 
session in the State of New York “let out” about an 
hour before, and that is only an approximation of 
the fact, subject, like all which enter into marine cal¬ 
culations, to correction for errors of variation, devi¬ 
ation and other disturbing factors. For this school, 
though of New York, is not in it; is about 1,300 
miles out of its jurisdiction on the high seas, yet 
carrying on its work as efficiently and diligently as 
any of the hundred thousand or more on land, and 
all now enjoying more or less well-earned vacation. 

Maybe you’d like to exercise the usually neglected 
privilege of the citizen and taxpayer and visit this 
floating school and see its practical operation. The 
boys have been up since 5 :30 reveille, decks washed, 
clothes scrubbed; an Italian Mediterranean liner, 
eastward bound, crossed our stern, ten miles away, 
two hours ago; the sky is cloudless, temperature 
balmy and bracing, of the North Atlantic; a smart 
northwester whips the white caps on the deep blue 
sea, which the sun flashes into long lines and lanes 
of silver, and the Newport, under sail and steam, 
swings steadily along, headed straight for old Lon¬ 
don town, at about eight knots. 

Perfect Environment for Study. 

A more fitting, inspiring setting and environment 
for the study of the science of the mastery of the 
sea, for understanding the mysteries and learning 
the practice of navigation, could not be imagined, 
and, more particularly, a young man who could not 
yield to it would be insensible to a lake, the boat, 
the pretty girl and moonlight, a combination rarely 
irresistible. Just as a matter of history and astron¬ 
omy combined, also we have the moonlight full, to¬ 
morrow night, but as to the others, “circumstances 
over which,” etc. 

Well forward in the starboard waist at ten o’clock, 
“six bells,” we’d say here, a class is seated, facing 
the bow, and in front, blackboard swinging at his 
left, is Lieut. Bicknell, instructor, a graduate and war 
veteran, making his first cruise on the Newport. The 
boys are a husky lot, and as they sit, the sun pouring 


down on their terra cotta arms and shoulders, for 
they all affect sleeveless undershirts, you begin to 
wonder how much odds you will be able to get when 
we get into the boat races with the middies, other 
schoolships, or anybody else on the other side. Each 
has his Bowditch, the navigator’s bible, a large blank 
note book, possibly a rule or two and pencil, and Mr. 
Bicknell expounds and illustrates the mathematics of 
navigation, combining theory with practice in a clear 
and effective manner. When he has made the boys 
understand the best hours for talking latitude obser¬ 
vations, and the best for longitude, he explains the 
reasons and puts into his talk both the mathematical 
principles on which the earth is operated, and the 
practical rules and reasons for them on which ships 
are sailed, that safety, economy and certainty may 
be secured. Blackboard illustrations are constantly 
before the eyes of the boys, and frequent questions 
fired without order or notice, each boy rising as his 
name is called, and the answers keep the whole class 
on its toes and keenly watching that nothing is 
missed. 

Lessons in Practical Seamanship. 

While this is going on, on the other side of the 
ship, a little further aft, tucked under the shade of 
the weather rail, and seated flat on the deck. Instruc¬ 
tor Wetmore, also a Newport product, is giving the 
other class instruction in seamanship, practical hand¬ 
ling of a ship, use of compass and log, allowance for 
deviation and variations, direction and force of 
winds and currents and all the seen and unseen im¬ 
portant factors with which the master must reckon 
if he wishes to make a port. Each boy,Tike those of 
the other class, has his Bowditch, and unlike those, 
has on his full suit of “whites,” so that, in spite of 
the fact that all are barefooted, the general appear¬ 
ance is more academic, if not more nautical. 

Here, as in the starboard class, the Socratic method 
prevails. The instructor draws ten or a dozen verti¬ 
cals on the blackboard in front of the class, allotting 
each column to some factor, course, wind, direction, 
leeway, etc., which affects the ship’s progress and 
position and, working across the board from left to 
right, calling indiscriminately on the boys by name, 
for answer to each question, to develop as its final 
result the correct answer and true position of the 
ship. When the solution is completed, a number of 
problems are set for the boys to work during the 


7 




afternoon and turn in during the evening for ex¬ 
amination and rating by the instructor with the in¬ 
junction that each boy should do his own work and 
the whole of it, that an error of his own is a much 
less offence than copying the correct work of an¬ 
other. 

Two Views of the Situation. 

Picture these fifty boys in the purest air, the 
brightest and lightest sea, the cloudless and brilliant 
sun, and who wouldn’t be a New York sailor boy, 
at least when the weather is like this? Had you 
seen them lying out on the yards to furl topsails last 
night as a squall was threatening and the careful 
captain, coming along to the stern watchman, in¬ 
structed him in throwing overboard the light burn¬ 
ing life buoy, and informed him that if anything 
happened to the boys aloft he would be held respon¬ 
sible for neglect of duty, you might change your 
mind. 

But do not suppose that navigation and seaman¬ 
ship classes are the only business of the morning. 
The Newport steadily steams on her way; the “black 
watch,” relieved from fire and engine room duty, are 
strewn prone, face up or down, as the owner pre¬ 
fers, on the forecastle deck, while their mates do 
their watch below; two hours on and four off is the 
regular turn. Our High street twenty-year Navy 
Yard veteran, who wears his service stripes proudly 
at inspection, is fashioning sail cloth covers under 
the bridge; Bos’n Holmes is running the deck and 
“conning” the ship; one of his mates is “serving” 
a ladder with canvas covering and twine lacing; the 
more or less harmonious notes of the saxophone, 
trombone and banjo, coming up through the open 
hatches, indicate that the jazz band of the watch 
below is getting ready for business; quartermasters 
amidships are steering the Newport by hand, as al¬ 
ways when sailing, and young Billy Riesenberg, 
astride the spanker boom, is monarch of all he sur¬ 
veys, but only for a few minutes, as he changes his 
mind and runs like a cat up the shrouds. 

Elections Unknown in This School. 

“Haec fabula docet,” as we used to say in the 
Latin First Reader, by which we are tempted to 
inquire: Isn’t there something in this morning’s ob¬ 
servations for the landlubber among the teachers 
and taxpayers of New York to think about? These 
boys are going to be sailors and officers of sailors, 
and they study and are taught only that which will 
lead on to position and promotion in their chosen 
profession. “Electives” are unknown; fads and frills 
conspicuous by their absence, and the whole drive is 
intensive, direct and practical. Isn’t the moral almost 
as plain as that full moon, which illuminates the sea 
over our starboard quarter? 

“Mast,” that ancient and honorable institution of 
the sea, for the clearing of the calendar of minor 
infractions of regulations, and generally enforcing 
discipline, and toning and tuning up the corps, was 
held on our second Sunday out of port. The busy 


days before leaving and the attractions and diver¬ 
sions of port yielded an unusually large dragnet, so 
that when the bos’ns mate mustered all who had 
been named on conduct reports, more than thirty 
cadets, some in “whites,” others in dungarees, lined 
up on the starboard quarter, with the great spanker 
idly and noisily over their heads in the dying wind. 

Procedure at “Mast” Trial. 

When all was ready Capt. Riesenberg came on deck 
and taking from the executive officer the handful of 
reports, called each cadet by name, but in no pre¬ 
scribed order. Each cadet so called stepped, front 
and centre, saluted, and from the report reading the 
captain addressed him by name, stated tersely the 
charge and asked tersely, “What have you to say?” 
In most cases an answer of some sort or other was 
made, explanation or apology. A few pleaded guilty, 
others denied the charge, and then witnesses were 
sent for and examined with neatness and dispatch. 
Rarely were more than two or three questions asked, 
and if any of the civil courts ever really cared to 
save time, and dispense justice swiftly and effect¬ 
ively they should attend a Newport “mast.” Most of 
the cases were of minor importance: tardiness, ab¬ 
sence without leave, shirking work and other offenses 
known ashore as well as afloat. When the charge 
was lying, insubordination or moral turpitude Capt. 
Riesenberg not only shot in rapid fire questions 
which soon had the culprit rattled and submissive, 
but drove them home with remarks calculated to 
impress on the cadets high standards of honor and 
fidelity, rivalry and ambition to excel in the school 
and its duties, that they might gain positions and 
more speedy advancement when they should enter 
the merchant service. 

It was interesting to note the boys’ faces as each 
learned his fate, as well as those of their comrades 
on the line and, though punishment was swift, but 
not severe, they were promptly made to understand 
that the performance was no joking matter. Penal¬ 
ties were oftenest demerits, from five to ten, each an 
hour of extra duty, which may be worked off, and 
the Captain urged the delinquents to clear them¬ 
selves before arrival in London. Reduction of shore 
liberty, the heaviest penalty, and one most dreaded 
by the cadets, a day or two being the lowest imposed, 
was recorded in one or two cases. 

Unique Sunday School Class. 

After something over one hour each delinquent 
had been disposed of, no exceptions allowed, no ap¬ 
peals taken and the formation was dismissed to join 
their more fortunate comrades forward and this 
unique Sunday school class was over. 

The log of the Newport, which may be calcu¬ 
lated by anybody who doubts these remarks, may 
in due time be consulted in the office of the Board 
of Governors of the School and possibly in those of 
the University of the State in the Education Building 
at Albany. Meanwhile, “as evidence of good faith, 
not necessarily for publication,” the following may 


serve, the distances being for each twenty-four hours 
preceding the noon position. 


July 

N. Lat. 

W. Long 

Distance 

6_ 

_ 39.59 

69.31 

138 miles 

7_ 

.. 39.37 

65.41 

181 

8_ 

. 39.19 

63.04 

128 

9. 

_ 39.10 

60.29 

120 

10_ 

. 39.21 

57.29 

139 

11_ 

_ 38.54 

53.29 

136 

12_ 

. 38.28 

39.34 

134 


13 _ 38.57 

14 _ 40.24 

16_ 41.62 

16_ 43.01 

18 _ 46.46 

19 _ 46.66 

20 _ 47.37 

21 _ 48.03 

22 _ 48.52 

23 _ 49.43 

24 _ 60.36 

H. L. B. 


47.16 120 

44.00 174 

40.54 165 

37.20 172 

29.06 234 

23.41 233 

18.63 199 

14.56 161 

10.11 196 

6.07 206 

0.24 E. 220 


9 














WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS; A PUBLIC 

SCHOOL AT SEA 


Summer Cruise Not Altogether a Picnic, But Boys Who Are Being Taught Seamanship and 
Navigation at Expense of New York State Enjoy Life—Drills and Inspection — Capt. 
Riesenherg's Trained Eye Everywhere at All Times. 

IL 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

LONDON, England, July 25.—The New York 
State nautical schoolship, Newport, Capt. Felix 
Riesenberg, superintendent, which left Glen Cove 
July 2, sighted the Lizard at 10:30 Tuesday morn¬ 
ing, July 22, and dropped anchor in the Thames at 
Gravesend, twenty-two miles below London, Thurs¬ 
day, July 24. The Newport, after four strenuous 
months of overhaul, amounting practically to com¬ 
plete reconstruction, made a leisurely getaway on 
what, had it not been for the World War, would 
have been its sixteenth transatlantic cruise. 

About noon of that memorable Tuesday, para¬ 
phrasing James—G. P. R., not William or Henry—a 
solitary chauffeur might have been seen picking his 
way with rather less than more success through leafy 
and tortuous Glen Cove until, sighting the picturesque 
bay and the white, graceful Newport at its anchor¬ 
age, he drove rapidly down the hill and, with obvious 
relief on his countenance, turned over his passenger 
to the ship’s boat and its crew of six handsome, 
lively lads in “whites.” Lunch over, the anchor was 
hove up, the course laid for New Rochelle, nine 
miles over the Sound, and liberation of a petty officer 
from a legal embarrassment, then up the Sound, with 
the famous ’round-the-world Aloha trailing, but only 
for a short distance, when she disappeared into the 
distance heading for Newport. 

Holiday at Gardiner’s Bay. 

Fourth of July; to Greenport, and a run to anchor¬ 
age in Gardiner’s Bay. All our Fourth was given 
over to boat, oar and sail drill, and racing in that 
incomparable, landlocked sheet of water, the day 
ending with a boat party ashore, and a survey in the 
twilight of the stately, historic old Gardiner Man¬ 
sion, with its quaint, silent windmill, now awaiting 
October and the hunts and dinners of its lessee, Clar¬ 
ence Mackay. Deer and pheasants are abundant on 
the island, and this haunt of legend and tradition, 
the last of the old Colonial grants, evokes keen curi¬ 
osity and contemporaneous human interest, when on 
its soil for the first time one listens to the mingled 
tales of Capt. Kidd’s buried treasure and last win¬ 
ter’s bootleggers. Saturday morning, at six, the 
Newport was under way; the morning papers picked 
up at Greenport; fifteen tons of fresh water taken 
on, a discharged petty officer put off at New 


London, and at sunset we took our departure 
through the “Race” into a stiff racing sea, just ahead 
of a thick, blanket of fog and with a steady shrill 
of the siren, for Land’s End, more than three thous¬ 
and miles away. 

That was an impressive and memorable scene, one 
evening, on the Newport’s snow white deck. Mus¬ 
tered in the twilight for assembly and roll call, the 
official end of a busy day, port and starboard watches 
stood at attention, the lines of white, barefooted lads 
facing each other, as Capt. Riesenberg stepped to the 
front and centre and announced to the company the 
death in the White House of the son of President 
Coolidge, from whom just before her departure the 
school had received a message of good will and God¬ 
speed, and stated that in the name of the Newport 
he had sent by radio to the White House a message 
of condolence and sympathy. The cadets, listening 
in respectful silence, were dismissed and broke 
ranks—it was all over in a minute. But it was one 
of those memorable minutes which last a lifetime 
and are never repeated. 

Perfect Environment. 

More fitting and sympathetic environment could 
hardly be imagined. The new moon, swinging low in 
the west, silvered the wake of the ship; the after¬ 
glow of a blood red sun swung almost around the 
entire horizon; not a ripple broke the surface of the 
sea, sails and rigging, often noisy and unruly, now 
silent; the great stars, Vega almost exactly over¬ 
head, Altair over the port, Antares over the 
starboard bow, and Arcturus on the quarter, with 
Polaris and the Great Dipper away aloft in the 
North, Jupiter abeam, high in the South. Here 
was a poem by the Almighty on the brevity of hu¬ 
man life and the limitations of his powers more 
effective than any ever written by man. 

And yet place and the circumstances carried their 
own answer and reaffirmed the authority of man and 
his challenge to nature. Here we were in mid- 
Atlantic, a thousand miles from the stricken White 
House, on the high seas of all nations, and by mod¬ 
ern science and its practical application, which has 
become everyday and commonplace, in touch as close 
and sympathy as actual and immediate as neighbors 
in Washington. If any cadet or any other citizen 
lacks faith in his country’s domain or doubts that its 


0 




destiny includes all the seas of all the world, the 
evening’s incident was a convincing object lesson, 
and as the boys scattered for their stations for the 
night and watches on deck and below their lookouts 
and tricks at the wheel, one could not but feel that 
they had learned something which neither books nor 
“bos’n” could tell them. 

Life Not all a Picnic. 

If anybody thinks that life on a schoolship’s 
summer cruise is a picnic or flowery bed of ease he 
has another think coming, or possibly, if doubt lin¬ 
gers, would better try it. The State of New York 
is paying out taxpayers’ good money to make good 
sailors, and if more work is involved in earning 
than in spending the^money it would be a hard job 
to prove it. Look, for example, at the routine of the 
day as posted on the ship’s bulletin: 

A. M. 

3:30—Call mess attendants to make coffee. 

3:60—Call the watch; trim up hammock cloths. 
4:00—Relieve the watch. 

4:10—Mess attendants serve coffee and hard tack. 
4:30—Turn to, lay up gear, sweep down, haul out 
hose, wet down deck, scrub and wash 
clothes. 

5:00—Enginer cadets not on watch scrub clothes. 
5:30—Knock off scrubbing, step clothes on line and 
trice up (no clothes allowed around decks). 
5:30—Wash down, hoist ashes from fire room. 

6:15—^Wash deck gear to dry. 

6:45—Up all hammocks, trice up hammock clothes, 
knock off all work, take stripped bath, 
crew and officers, men and boys included. 
7:00—Call medical officer. 

7:15—Mess gear watch below. 

7:25—Wash inspection, both watches. 

7:30—Pipe watch below to breakfast. 

7:46—Mess cooks watch on deck lay below. 

7:50—Shift into uniform of day. 

7:66—First call for colors. 

8:00—Colors, relieve watch and march to breakfast. 
8:30—Turn to, sick call, light work. 

9:00—Knock off light work, sweep deck, stow 
away wash deck gear and clear deck for 
inspection. 

9:20—Shift into uniform for day. 

9:30—Muster and inspection. 

9:45—Conduct reports and mast. 

10:00—Drill and instruction. 

11:30—First class on deck with sextants. 

11:40—Mess gear, watch below. 

12:00—Report 12 o’clock and latitude, watch below 
to dinner. 

12:20—Mess gear for watch on deck. 

12:30—Release watch, pipe to dinner. 

P. M. 

1:00—Turn to, sweep down. 

1:30—Inspect mess gear. 

1:30 to 3:30—Exercises or instruction. 

3:30—Sweep down. 

4:00—Relieve watch. 

5:24—Mess gear watch below. 

5:30—Supper watch below. 

5:50—Mess gear watch on deck. 

6:00—Relieve watch, pipe to supper. 

6:30—Turn to, sweep down decks and smoking 
lamp study. 

7:30—Knock off study. 

7:45—Hammocks for watch below, swing but do 
not unlash. 

8:00—Report 8 o’clock, hammocks for watch going 
below. 

11:50—Call the watch, lash but do not carry. 

12:00—Relieve the watch. 

Add to their special weekly drills fire, collision, 
man overboard, locker inspection and other neces¬ 
sary routine duties and it is obvious that the eight 
hour day hasn’t yet made much impression on the 
nautical school, and a fair inference that the cadet’s 
lot, like the policeman’s, may not be altogether a hap¬ 
py one, and yet the boys don’t seem to mind it. 
Inspection Impressive Ceremony. 

Saturday weekly inspection is a time-honored cere¬ 
mony in the United States navy, all over the world. 


and the Newport, still on the establishment, faith¬ 
fully observes the customs of the service. Even to 
the landsman, a mere looker-on in this floating 
Vienna, signs that something is going to happen are 
early recognizable. Officers in spick and span new 
uniforms, buttons and braid bright, trousers razor- 
creased, the State insignia flashing, saunter on the 
quarter deck, the barefooted lads in spotless whites 
gather in groups in the waist, the familiar checked 
shirts of the bos’n and his mate are covered by blue 
brass-buttoned reefers, deck work is knocked off 
and a general air of watchful waiting prevails as 
the ship rolls steadily along on her course. At 10:45 
the bugler comes to the mast, blows the warning 
call for inspection and muster, and soon the forma¬ 
tions are rapidly going on. Commissioned officers on 
the quarter deck, abaft the mizzen mast; the war¬ 
rant officers facing and just forward of them; petty 
officers, some wearing stripes of honorable war ser¬ 
vice, and crew in blue uniforms, or clean working 
clothes, on the port side, and the cadets, white- 
capped and barefooted, in two platoons, engineers on 
the port deck, department on the starboard. Forma¬ 
tions are not as in the army, according to stature, 
but by squads, each “top” captain having his partic¬ 
ular group assembled next him. 

Junior Riesenbergs On Deck. 

Exactly at 11 the bugle sounds again, all stand at 
attention and Capt. Riesenberg, in service uniform, 
steps on deck, returns his salute and with his staff, 
passes rapidly down the lines. Half way down the 
front rank, and several files apart were the junior 
Riesenbergs, 12 and 10, respectively, very much 
“chips of the old block,” veterans of the Newport’s 
1923 cruise, and standing up for official and parental 
inspection, just as if they belonged and were on the 
regular establishment, as they doubtless will be, 
unless all signs fail, if they work their way into 
the navy and head for admiral’s rank and stars at 
an earlier day.* 

Veterans of the port side are first inspected with 
an occasional friendly exchange between some old 
regular navy ex-service man, or Hennessy, the col¬ 
ored cook, who has been here so long that the mem¬ 
ory of man runneth not to the contrary; then cross¬ 
ing to the starboard, the cadets open ranks, and are 
carefully and individually inspected, not with the 
critical eye of a martinet, but with the kindly atten¬ 
tion of a shipmate and friend. Little defects of de¬ 
tail are noted and checked up; a pleasant personal 
word of recognition exchanged, and the ceremony 
passes off as a real inspection, in which good con¬ 
duct, cleanliness, and neatness are all observed and 
commended, and their opposites corrected, with jus¬ 
tice and real discipline. When the captain has gone 
around and between the lines, ranks are closed, and 
after he leaves the deck, the formation is dismissed. 

Look Over Ship and Equipment. 

Following inspection of the personnel comes that 
of the ship and its equipment. Going to the berth 
deck, with the officers as before, the Captain person¬ 
ally examines mess gear, dining tables and other 


11 


equipment. Nothing escapes his eye and the way 
in which he takes a fork from the pile which lies 
before him and squints between the tines through 
the porthole, and at the sea beyond, is a warning 
that no slovenliness or shiftlessness will get by. Then 
the galley, its shining copper and aluminum kettles, 
filled with savory spare ribs, cooking for dinner; 
the petty officers’ small, clean and orderly rooms 
next the “focsle” for the paid crew, in which mat¬ 
tresses and blankets have taken the place of the 
noisome and unsanitary bunks of the olden time; 
though the richest State in the Union still denies 
its sailors pillows; the domain of “Chips” the car¬ 
penter, who, if he can’t find an3rthing of wood 
which the ship wants, can make it; into the sail loft 
and hold below, where spare and second hand sail 
are stowed, so that anything wanted may be found 


in a minute; down into the boiler and engine rooms, 
the electrical and refrigerating plants, then aft to 
the “sick bay” where an unlucky lad, the sole occu¬ 
pant, was nursing a badly contused leg. Not an inch 
of space or detail of construction or equipment was 
omitted or overlooked. Occasionally an officer would 
call attention to some feature or incident, but ordi¬ 
narily Capt. Riesenberg’s trained eye was every- 
were at all times and when inspection was over 
there was nothing about the ship and her company, 
for all of which he is personally responsible, which 
he did not personally know. Altogether inspection 
of personnel and equipment occupied about an hour 
and a half, and it is safe to say that in no naval 
vessel of the regular establishment is the duty more 
thoroughly and faithfully performed. 

H. L. B. 


12 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS IN THE ENG¬ 
LISH CHANNEL 


New York. Schoolship, on Voyage to London, Passes Through Historic Waters—Seafaring 
as a Life Job and What It Offers the American Bo^ — Capt. Kinney*s Reminiscenses of 
Submarine Jldventure—A Flight That Failed. 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

GRAVESEND, England, July 29, 1924.—Some¬ 
where in the Atlantic and some time between mid¬ 
night and daylight of July 13, for exact details and 
place and time consult the official log on file at the 
Navy Department, the Newport “turned the corner,” 
as the sailormen say, and, leaving her direct easterly 
course from New London, a week before, turned 
up sharply, as you would out of Fulton street into 
Flatbush avenue, into the east-northeast and laid a 
great circle track, straight forward the English 
Channel and the Thames and London beyond. Soon 
conditions changed, the winds shifted around to the 
northward and we went rolling and spinning along 
under sail, and engine dead and silent. 

The next Sunday a stiff norther kept the sea run¬ 
ning higher, and though the little old gunboat rode 
the waves like a duck, shipping not a drop of water, 
she rolled like one, also, and kept nearly everybody 
below. A night or two later, a sudden squall with 
a little rain struck the ship and those who came on 
deck early in the morning saw the topgallant yard, 
a spar thirty-one feet long and in its larger part 
eleven inches in diameter, snapped squarely in two 
like a pipestem and hanging with its hamper useless 
and helpless. No other damage was done, however, 
and we will not need topgallants much more until 
we strike the trades, homeward bound, by which 
time the new spar will be set up and rigged. 

Welcome Approach to Land. 

After the blow, temperature moderated, and 
though we increased latitude and cut down longi¬ 
tude daily, meaning that we were driving up into 
the northeast, already five hundred miles or so north 
of Brooklyn, temperature moderated and the decks 
were more of a July atmosphere. 

All day Tuesday, July 22, it was evident that we 
were approaching land, two trawlers in sight at the 
same time off to the southeast, outward bound; our 
faithful friends and followers—the gulls, the por¬ 
poises, singly and in schools, welcome to every 
sailor, all told the same and encouraging truth, for 
“believe me,” twenty-one days at sea on a thousand- 
ton ship, no matter how nearly perfect everything 
and everybody, is more or less a trial of patience 
and other qualities of which Job had quite a mo¬ 
nopoly. 

Things began to happen in earnest on Wednesday 


morning, and the veriest landlubber would have 
known there was something in the air. The Stars 
and Stripes were snapping at the peak; the blue 
State flag stood straight out at the main, covers and 
lashings were off the boats, oars and running gear 
littered the deck; the copper light-burning life buoys, 
green with salt incrustation and exposure, were hoist¬ 
ed in and brightly polished, and an air of bustle and 
expectancy more than verified the accuracy of the 
seventy-five fathom sounding the evening before. 
Craft, sail and steam, were almost too numerous to 
mention”; at 10:30 the White Star two-funneled 
Pittsburgh, which had been following on our port 
quarter since early morning, drew abeam a mile or 
more away. 

International code signals and courtesies were ex¬ 
changed, and making fourteen or fifteen knots she 
forged ahead on her course. We made out in the 
blue haze, the faint, but certain outlines of Land’s 
End and knew that we had crossed the Atlantic. 
At eleven thirty the Lizard and its white lighthouse 
were abeam and we plowed along at full speed, 
through Plymouth sound, and with memories of 
Drake, Hawkins, Rodney and the Spanish Armada 
and the great deeds in these waters, though centu¬ 
ries ago and but for which it’s more than a fair 
guess we wouldn’t be here to-day, nor for that mat¬ 
ter, would you and “lil’ old New York” to say noth¬ 
ing of Brooklyn. 

Discuss School’s Advantages. 

As we were coming up the channel the other even¬ 
ing, wardroom discussions, between listening in to 
military bands and orations broadcast from London, 
turned on this State nautical school and what there 
is in it now and in the future for its students and 
graduates. Boys come on board here as young as 
17 and as old as 20 and for two years are lodged, 
fed and taught at the expense of the State of New 
York and at a cost estimated roughly at $1,000 or 
$1,200 a year per head. For pupils of no other 
school does the State do so much, for in all others 
they “find” themselves, that is to say, live and lodge 
at home without expense to the taxpayers. 

Clothing in ship’s duty and on shore is paid by 
the cadet from a deposit of $130 which he makes 
on entrance. Any lad of good health and character 
with ordinary education, such as any high school 
graduate ought to have, is eligible for the school 


13 




and he obtains his appointment as a matter of right, 
not because of political “pull,” direct or indirect kin¬ 
ship or any other form of favoritism. Examinations, 
of which the next will be in November, are in the 
fundamentals of mathematics, American history and 
geography, no trick or catch questions, and intended 
to disclose more of the applicant’s general intelli¬ 
gence, mentality and common sense than the accre¬ 
tions of a bookworm. Papers of former examina¬ 
tions may be obtained from the Department of Edu¬ 
cation at Albany and they will reward study not 
only by those aspiring to the examinations, but by 
civil service commissioners who are endeavoring to 
formulate and apply tests which will discover good 
material for any department of public service. 

Possibilities of the Future. 

Two years, each of eight months, port and shore 
study, three of practice and observation cruise, and 
one of leave, make up the course and after that 
what? Well, for graduates in the engineer’s depart¬ 
ment provided, as is practically always the case, the 
government license is obtained on the Newport’s 
certification of graduation, positions as third or 
fourth assistant engineer on oceangoing steamships 
at $160 to $165 per month, which, considering that 
the ship provides quarters, subsistence and practi¬ 
cally all living expenses in port as well as at sea, 
is by no means inadequate compensation for a begin¬ 
ner who may be only just turned nineteen. Duty 
performed, promotion, either in the line or the 
merchant marine, follows as a matter of course un¬ 
til, at thirty or thereabout, the young man ought to 
be “chief” or captain, with a savings bank ballance 
and a comfortable home of his own in sight ashore, 
leaving the steady grind of routine duty to those 
who have followed him. 

For deck graduates the path of advancement is 
very similar. Command is by no means rare and 
the roster of the old “St. Marys” and the “New¬ 
port” graduates, lengthened somewhat, of course, by 
the demands and experiences of the World War, is 
long and honorable, containing hundred of names 
synonyms for honor and distinction. Wages on deck, 
to begin with, are not quite as high as in the engine 
room, but they say that Hartley, an “Annapolis” 
Pennsylvania scholarship graduate now on cruise, 
receives $7,500 a year and allowances and skippers 
of some of the crack ocean liners manage by com¬ 
missions and other advantages to gather in almost 
twice that every year. What ambitious boy in Brook¬ 
lyn or up-State, who would care to see the world 
and something of what is going on in it, wouldn’t 
think twice before he turned down the Newport 
and its promise, to become a mere stay-at-home 
gasping for breath in the overcrowded professions? 

Capt. Kinney’s Submarine Tale. 

Yarn spinning, ever since the time of Lord High 
Admiral Noah, has occupied a good deal of the time 
at sea, and here is one told in the Azores, Ponta 
Delgada, by Capt. Kinney, master of the “William 
F. Frye,” first American vessel to be submarined 


in the World War, never before told or printed, 
which may perhaps as well be repeated here: 

“We were coming up from the River Plate,” said 
the Captain, “in the big three-master, skysail yarder 
‘Frye,’ just after America and Germany had broken 
with each other, but before our declaration of war, 
when, one afternoon, a submarine ranged alongside 
and hailed the commander to stop. As we were 
where we had a right to be, doing what we ought 
to, and minding our own business, I paid no atten¬ 
tion until suddenly I heard a gun and the next 
minute a solid shot whistled over my bow. ‘Heave 
to’ promptly followed and, being unarmed, I con¬ 
cluded that discretion was the better part of valor 
and obeyed. In a few minutes a most gentlemanly 
officer came on board and informed me that our na¬ 
tions were at war and that the unpleasant duty de¬ 
volved on him of destroying my ship and cargo, 
evidently destined for the aid of the Allies. ‘But 
give yourself no concern,’ said he; ‘for your per¬ 
sonal safety or that of your family, whom I see 
you have aboard.’ 

“True to his word the ‘Frye’s’ company, passen¬ 
gers and crew were all comfortably installed and 
after desirable stores and equipment had been re¬ 
moved, the gallant ship was safely transferred to the 
submarine, which resumed its cruise, sinking other 
ships and salvaging their companies as she went along 
until her own quarters became congested. Two 
junior officers and a prize crew were dispatched 
with a large capture, to which all the prisoners of 
war, who had been as handsomely entertained as cir¬ 
cumstances permitted, were transferred. 

“One day the submarine commander called me to 
his quarters and said: ‘We are approaching Norfolk, 
Va., off which a British and a French cruiser are 
lying and watching for us. You know the harbor 
and channel and I want you to take us in. When we 
sight the lights of Capes Charles and Henry, the 
ship is yours, but if you make any mistake, put her 
aground or out of her true course, you know the 
consequences.’ When the lights were s'ghted the 
German was as good as his word and with an armed 
guard at each side and a third party at my back, I 
brought the submarine up through Hampton Roads 
and into Norfolk Harbor where the U. S. interned 
it until the end of the war.” 

Inspection Review at Gravesend. 

While King George and the flower of royalty 
and nobility were reviewing six miles of the British 
Navy, headed by the colossal flagship Queen Eliza¬ 
beth and running down to all sorts of mine layers, 
mine sweepers, torpedo boats, destroyers and sub¬ 
marines, Saturday morning, we had a little inspection 
review of our own at Gravesend which didn’t get 
into the papers, yet immensely delighted our 
Republican American souls. 

Along about 10 o’clock, as the usual morning ship’s 
routine was going on, “the Nantucket coming out,” 
was the word passed from the bow lookout, and, 
sure enough a mile upstream, among the hulks and 


14 


crowded Saturday excursion, swift steamers for 
Ramsgate and Margate, could be made out the white 
hull and tapering spars of the Massachusetts school 
ship, formerly the U. S. S. Ranger, Capt. Rusk com¬ 
manding, and in size, model and rig about a duplicate 
of the Newport. For days she had been moored 
near London Bridge, and it is whispered, held at 
low tide by the stern in the mud, but released she 
came up this morning, homeward bound, like a thing 
alive and with speed increased by a strong ebb tide. 

Over on the port quarter, still in gray war paint, 
lay the Pennsylvania schoolship Annapolis and, so 
for a few minutes, here in foreign waters were the 
three American schoolships almost withing hailing 
distance of each other. On the Nantucket the 
starboards rails were manned with cadets in blues; 
on the Newport with ones in white, and on the 
quarter deck officers in uniform gathered and each 
ship, as they came aboard, paid all the honors. En¬ 
signs were dipped, signals exchanged and though 
not another thing afloat appeared to take the slight¬ 
est notice of what was going on, every American 
heart beat a little faster at the sight of the three 
flags from as many schoolship mastheads and saw 
in them promise of better days for the “Casuals of 
the Sea,” which may mean ultimate restoration to 
prestige and power rightfully theirs. 

One immediate moral of the incident, which was 
purely fortuitous, a mere chance happening, is that 
a decided accession to the value and lasting results 
of the summer cruises of the schoolships would 
be gained by co-ordination and adjustment of itine¬ 
raries so that in at least one or more ports, all three 
ships might meet, pull off water and land sporting 
events between their crews and give a little military 
exhibition or two on shore. Rivalry and mutual re¬ 
spect could be developed and wholesome valuations 
arnong the motives developed for the American 
sailor and, if a modest admission was charged, the 
sporting and athletic funds of the ships would sen¬ 
sibly increase. 

And then, when it comes to fighting ships, our 
crack “Raleigh,” named for the home of a former 
Secretary of the Navy, not Sir Walter, the first 
known “top kick,” is coming here next week and 
we’ll show them all the modern improvements in war 
as well as in peace. 

Deserting Cadet Changes Mind. 

Here is a letter to which, perhaps, nothing need 
be added save that the penmanship is exceptionally 
neat, correct and legible, far better than that of the 
average high school graduate of the present day, and 
if handwriting is, as they say, index of character, 
this cadet ought to be given another chance and will 
make good if he gets it; 

“U. S. S. Newport 
“Gravesend, July 26, 1924. 

“To the Executive Officer: 

“The following is an account of my actions on the 
morning of July 26th. I had managed by various in¬ 
fringements of the rules of the schoolship to obtain 
forty-five demerits. I thought that I would natu¬ 


rally be restricted and I had always wanted to see 
England ever since I was quite young. In fact I 
had always wanted to live in England and I had a 
hazy idea of striking out for myself and staying 
here. On board the ship I was not making a very 
good record. I am slow, and not very bright by 
nature and I could not seem to do things to please 
my superiors. I admit everything I received in the 
way of punishment was absolutely all my fault. I 
am just disgusted with myself for not being able 
to do things better, but I have always had to con¬ 
quer a lazy, idle streak in me ever since I was a 
child, and ! know that I have been a disappointment 
to my people. I am just telling you so that you may 
see some reasons for my actions. 

“I felt that I would like to start living in England, 
and that I could maybe make good and do better 
here, because I have always liked this country. I 
finally made up my mind to leave the ship, and took 
my pair of oilskin trousers and rolled dungarees and 
sweater in them, and tied a pair of shoes on the 
bundle. I could not manage to get out a port, so I 
hung about on deck waiting a chance to go down a 
hammock lashing I had tied on the pelican hook of 
a boat gripe. I managed to slip over the side and 
started to swim. The tide was quite strong, and after 
I had gone a short way I began to feel pretty well 
exhausted. I tried to hold against a mooring buoy, 
but the sweep of the current nearly brought me 
under the buoy. I finally managed to hang on the 
centerboard (probably means leeboard) of a smack 
of some sort, after having missed a boat that was 
towing astern of another smack. I climbed on board, 
and found that there was no one on the smack. I 
opened one of the hatches and went into the hold, 
crawling into a bag of some sort. 

While I was in the bag I thought of the school- 
ship, the few friends I had on board, and various 
things such as this. I finally made up my mind to 
come back again. The rest is fairly easy. The boats¬ 
wain saw me come on board over the gangway this 
morning. I don’t want it to be thought that I am 
making excuses or any such thing as that by the first 
part of my account. It may sound rather childish 
and babyish, but it is the plain facts of my case. 

Respectfully, 

« _ » 

Senior Regent Charles B. Alexander, of Manhat¬ 
tan and Tuxedo, came down yesterday afternoon 
from London and inspected the ship, being received 
with all the honors and piped on and off, the quarter¬ 
deck bugles sounding and “side boys” saluting as 
he came and went, just as if he were Lord High Ad¬ 
miral. Rather unfortunately many of the cadets are 
on shore liberty, but thorough inspection of the ship 
and its work elicited merited expressions of com¬ 
mendation. 

A week from to-morrow or next day we hope to 
display at our main the blue Excelsior flag for the 
first time in Antwerp, which claims primacy among 
the ports of Europe. 

H. L. B. 


15 



WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS ON AN 
AUTOMOBILE TOUR 


English Hospitality Shown to New York Soys and Schoolship—'Visit to Damley Park 
and Historic Haunts and Homes in Kent — Pickwick, Falstaff and Dickons—Search for 
Pocahontas* Grave. 


IV. 

(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.), 

GRAVESEND, England, Aug. 2, 1924.—Yester¬ 
day was a red letter day in the annals of the New¬ 
port. Early in the day Mayor Henry E. Davis who, 
the previous afternoon, in almost regal pomp and 
ceremony, returned Capt. Riesenberg’s official call, 
invited the officers and cadets to accompany him and 
members of the borough council on a tour through 
interesting portions of this historic old country of 
Kent which boasts that it is the only one in England 
preserving itself and its independence from Norman 
rule. 

At 4 o’clock, the cadet company, smart and snappy 
in blue with white caps, bearing above the visors the 
State arms in gold, and in white gloves, a battalion 
which would have done credit to Annapolis or West 
Point, marched in columns of twos up the narrow 
sidewalk from the Royal Terrace pier to the Town 
Clock, high on a Gothic tower in the plaza, the civic 
centre of the borough. Here the mayor and his 
associate hosts awaited the visitors, who were soon 
seated in high, comfortable motor buses, charabancs 
they call them here, first cousins to our “rubber¬ 
necks,” and running rapidly through the narrow and 
tortuous streets of Gravesend, out into the open 
country to the west and southwest. 

Typical English Rural Scenes. 

As we climbed the grades on excellent “metaled” 
roads, the landscape enlarged and soon we were look¬ 
ing over typical English rural scenes, fields of wheat, 
oats and barley, ripening in the fickle and infrequent 
sun, some already cut and in shock, then along a 
tract cut into handfuls of land, where each tenant, a 
London workman, might raise vegetables for his 
family, in the distance far rolling fields rising up 
in the horizon to the sky, like the Catskill or Adiron¬ 
dack vistas, and everywhere trees, single monarchs, 
in long and stately files as if planted generations 
ago, and once in a while a patch of real woodland. 
Everywhere were ancient landmarks. 

“See that house,” said my companion, as we 
passed one a little more venerable than the com¬ 
mon run; “it’s six hundred years old,” and so on by 
“Fox and Hounds” and the other “pubs,” including 
Pickwick Inn, the identical hostelry of the immor¬ 
tal Tupman, we came to Cobham Park, of Lord 
Darnley, but not the line, in which lay so much of 


the tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots. Almost its first 
view, out of an avenue a mile or more long, over¬ 
hung by magnificent elms, along which we were told 
no carriage is ever driven, except it carries a coffin. 
Asked for the reason, the answer was altogether 
characteristic: “Well, it’s the tradition, and besides 
it’s the shortest way to the church.” Rarely could a 
more impressive and funereal line of march be found, 
and whether under leafless trees in winter gales or in 
full foliage and deep shadows in summer, nature’s 
mood and silences would be more effecttive than any 
words of man. 

At Lord Darnley’s gate we were told he had left 
the Hall, a rambling, two-story brick mansion of no 
architectural pretensions, of which we had occa¬ 
sional views through the trees, as we passed rapidly 
along the confines of the park to a small vacant 
gore, between old and new roads, where the motors 
were halted. The whole company descended, the 
hampers of solids and liquids were opened, the 
mayor made a litttle speech of welcome and the rest 
goes without telling. No thoughtful observer could 
overlook the fifty-thousand acre holdings of Darn- 
ley, largely fallow and unbroken, given over to deer 
and pheasants, hunting and sports, and wonder why 
England does not raise more food and buy less—to 
which the obvious answer is that until labor is lower 
Canadian and Australian wheat and meats can be 
laid down in London much more cheaply than Kent’s 
or the counties of the west or north. 

Ancient Cathedral at Strood. 

Onward, after luncheon, running along the Can¬ 
terbury road of Chaucer’s Pilgrim, we soon topped 
the rising ground overlooking the Medway, a great 
tidal river, rivaling the Thames, and found the sea 
a few miles to the south of it, at our feet the an¬ 
cient town of Strood, on the heights beyond Roch¬ 
ester and its thousand years or more Cathedral, old¬ 
est and one of the poorest in England, whence, you 
may remember. Bishop Hole came to lecture to us 
in Brooklyn, some years ago, and a bit further 
along Chatham, famous for its dockyards and naval 
base, and beyond, Gillingham, four municipalities 
practically one, and so closely running into one 
another that you cannot tell where each leaves off 
and the next begins, nearly a quarter of a million 
of people in the four and yet each with its own of- 


16 




ficials, dignities and authorities, as New York used 
to be before consolidation. 

The Chatham Hotel, which entertained Queen 
Victoria, tries to bask in the glory of that memory, 
but our young sailors were a good deal more keen 
to get inside the Empire Theatre, where, thanks 
again to the Gravesend Mayor, a director, they 
laughed themselves nearly to death over a rollick¬ 
ing revue, “The Dancing Barber,” which has a 
good deal of slapstick humor, uncommonly good 
dancing and costuming, and some spirited charac¬ 
ter acting. 

The mayor made another little speech, from a 
box, draped with the American flag, telling them who 
the visitors were and why Gravesend was doing this 
for them, to which Capt. Riesenberg made a grace¬ 
ful and effective response, which was most cordi¬ 
ally received. The Newport’s officers occupied the 
opposite box, draped with the British flag. “Two per¬ 
formances nightly” read the programme, one at 6 and 
the other at 8. Matinees are apparently unknown at 
the Empire. It was interesting to hear the manager 
of the motion picture next door, also within the may¬ 
or’s financial protection, say, “All the best films come 
from America; climate, I suppose,” though those 
at the Empire of the great naval review at Spithead 
by the King last week were exceptionally vivid and 
impressive. 

View of Falstaff Tower. 

Chatham was rarely if ever more congested than 
when the “rubbernecks,” packed with hilarious ca¬ 
dets, rolled out toward Gravesend and the Newport. 
The Falstaff tower, a lofty landmark on top of a 
hill, seems to dispute the assertion that nobody 
knows who put it there or what for, while the 
“Fallstaff Inn,” at the top of the grade, certainly 
confirms the belief that memory if not actual pres¬ 
ence of the great authority on sack and other things 
had something to do with it. 

No uncertainty, however, exists about the former 
home of Charles Dickens, a substantial, foursquare 
red brick residence, withdrawn a little from the road 
and surrounded by shrubbery on the left, just as we 
rise to the level on the top of Gads Hill. Occupied 
for a long time by the great Victorian, and birth¬ 
place of many of his books, it was later sold to pri¬ 
vate owners, and is now employed as a school, in 
which we could see lights burning brightly as we 
passed. Further along, toward the Thames, and 
commanding a view of it for miles, the road runs 
past another Dickens memorial, a humble vine- 
covered cottage, almost ready to fall, one would 
say, into the street. One tells you that Dickens was 
born in it, and points to a tablet by some London 
society to prove the assertion; another, but who 
says that he knew Dickens personally and for many 
years, declares that the inimitable novelist spent his 
honeymoon in it, and was born in Portsmouth. 


“Seven cities, through which the living Homer 
begged his bread,” you remember. 

And so on, down to the old gray, ivied Chalk 
Church in Milton, and back to the Square of the 
Clock at Gravesend, where the mayor makes another 
little speech, complimenting the boys, and they de¬ 
serve it, on their bearing and behavior; and escorted 
by the band, playing in time so fast that nobody 
could keep step to it nor with each other, we 
marched through the principal streets and crowding 
throngs to the pier plaza, where the mayor bade us 
all good-night, the band played “Auld Lang Syne” 
and “God Save the King,” at the end of a perfect 
day, one of which New York and its public schools 
have the right to be proud. 

At Pocahontas’ Tomb. 

Mark Twain at the tomb of Adam had nothing on 
Capt. Riesenberg at that of Pocahontas, yesterday, 
though whether the latter’s “story” will become, like 
the Clemens (rest his soul) classic, only time can 
tell. The recent agitation for exhumation and ship¬ 
ment to America of the bones of the Indian Prin¬ 
cess, successfully resisted by Gravesend, is still fresh 
in mind and doubtless stimulated our curiosity. 
Old St. George’s is down by the waterside, and it is 
still a fair presumption that, as the oldest of Graves¬ 
end churchyards, the remains of the fair Indian, 
whose death on board a ship anchored off Graves¬ 
end is well authenticated, were interred in the an¬ 
cient burial ground. 

The marble tablet in the chancel tells us that 
Pocahontas or Matoska was “gentle and humane,” 
and died at the age of twenty-two, but as to place of 
interment is silent. Local living authorities confess 
and profess ignorance. A workman in the grass- 
grown yard told us that some time ago a consider¬ 
able number of remains, quite likely including those 
of Pocahontas, were gathered and reinterred, un¬ 
marked, in a common grave, to make way for im¬ 
provements and changes, and that there was no way 
by which anything certain at this late day could be 
established. Still, one could not but speculate 
whether Elizabeth, not always gentle or humane, or 
this lovely princess, did more for us and America, 
or what would have happened had the young lady 
not had that affair with Capt. John Smith. 

Cadet Lusk of Binghamton, nephew of the Sena¬ 
tor, is invalided home, passage paid, on “The Ameri¬ 
can Shipper,” Capt. Schuyler F. Cummings (’09), 
N. Y. State Nautical School, commanding. Salutes 
were exchange between us and Capt. Schuyler’s ship, 
his alma mater, passing down to the bar from Til¬ 
lary docks, on the Thames opposite Gravesend. We 
expect to see the sun rise, Wednesday, on the 
Scheldt, in Holland, and set on the same day and 
river at Antwerp in Belgium. 

H. L. B. 


17 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS IN LONDON 

AND ON THE THAMES 


Impressions and Experiences Recorded—What a *‘Great Britain Onl^” World Fair Is and 
Means—Four Merchant Schoolships at Anchor in River—American Chamber of Com¬ 
merce in London. 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

N. Y. SCHOOL SHIP NEWPORT, GRAVES¬ 
END, England, Aug. 5, 1924.—We shall slip on—^pull 
out they say in the “Main Streets” of the middle 
West— at 4 o’clock this afternoon, drop down the 
Thames with a flowing tide, and, D. V., look on the 
low lying shores of Holland tomorrow morning, 
thread our way up the Scheldt and anchor or tie up 
a few hours later in modern and mediaeval Antwerp. 

Before leaving the hospitable and historic town, in 
which so much has been done to make New Yorkers 
contented and drive away any lingering homesick¬ 
ness, a few more general observations of this “right 
little, tight little island,” and what’s going on in it, 
may not be inopportune, now, as to Wembley and 
its British Empire Exhibition. Eight million people 
have seen it during the first four months, and 

“on the outer walls 
The cry is, still they come.” 

So that a campaign for extension through the season 
of 1925 is under way, and to use another Western 
phrase, “spreading like wildfire.” The idea looks 
good to the typical, average Britisher, always “busi¬ 
ness as usual,” and has much to commend it. Care 
and upkeep of grounds and buildings during the 
winter couldn’t cost much, comparatively; many ex¬ 
hibits late in opening would get the full value of 
their investment, and the impetus of the first season 
would put it over in fine shape into the second. So 
far as the merit of the exhibition is concerned, the 
final word will not for a long time be written. 

Coney Island Over Again. 

An American, than whom none is more compe¬ 
tent and critical, says tersely, “It’s a fraud”; while 
the fact that many of the Newport cadets have made 
two and some three visits indicate other opinion and 
more favorable judgment. Ten chances to one the 
Brooklynite’s exclamation, as he gets his first view 
from a car window or the top of an omnibus, would 
be: “Luna Park and Coney Island over again!” and 
so far as the exterior is concerned he wouldn’t be 
far wrong. Roller coasters, a brave display of ban¬ 
ners and barkers, the electric light, skeleton towers, 
they are all there, and the spectacle, to a tender¬ 
hearted observer, even from old instead of new 
Gravesend, is enough almost to bring tears to eyes 
unused to weep and remind him that on midsum¬ 


mer Sundays there’s no place like home. It’s only 
fair to say, however, that the exhibition should not 
be judged by external appearances, and that the rele¬ 
gation of all cheaper and more distracting competi¬ 
tion to the outside was wise and commendable. 

To describe or attempt to describe the exhibition 
in detail would be idle and futile. Imagine Prospect 
Park cut up by straight and curved roads into plots 
of every conceivable shape and dimension, and filled 
with fifty-seven varieties of nations, each with its 
own particular feature and trait, and you would have 
a faint idea of what the project attempts and reas¬ 
onably accomplishes. The great Stadium, a glorified 
Ebbets Field, in concrete, as if they’d brought it over 
and enlarged the Yankees’ or Giants’, crowns the 
highest elevation, and in it are held, when it doesn’t 
rain, which isn’t so very often, the mighty “Pageants 
of Empire,” to Sir Edward Elgar’s music and Rud- 
yard Kipling’s poetic imperialism. Scattered about 
on all sides and in all directions, with more order 
and wisdom than the visitor at first recognizes, are 
the dominion and colonial crown exhibits. 

Picturesque Effects at Wembley. 

Nature has been good to Wembley and, by making 
full use of the “lay of the land,” its slopes and un¬ 
dulations, far more picturesque effects have been 
obtained than by grading to a common level or by 
our rectangular “block” system of streets and ave¬ 
nues. On the other hand, architectural and artistic 
grouping and expression are sacrificed. Wembley has 
none of the impressive dignity of Chicago’s White 
City, none of the poetry and eloquence and splendor 
of San Francisco’s Panama-Paacific (a high peak in 
Fair history), and possibly did well not to attempt it, 
since the objectives of this exposition are distinctly 
different—practical, commercial and political. 

Canada and Australia, as would be likely, in size 
and interior display, obviously dominate the Domin¬ 
ion buildings, while little Malta’s pavilion, under the 
direction of Commissioner Agius, an old Maltese 
neighbor and friend of our Bishop Caruana, of Porto 
Rico, formerly of Our Lady of Mercy, in Schermer- 
horn street, and St. Leo’s, in Corona, has many at¬ 
tractive productions and reproductions of this an¬ 
cient colony, Britain’s stronghold in the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Sierra Leone is picturesque in red, sunbaked 
brick, a village in walled compound, thirty feet high. 


18 




with no entrance but its main gate. Even the remote 
Falklands are represented and “Palestine, mandatory 
territory,” serves notice to the rest of the world of 
Britain’s ideas concerning the future of the Holy 
Land. One doesn’t have to keep his ear long to the 
ground to hear imperialism as the keynote of the 
exhibition- 

study of details would require months and de¬ 
scription of many volumes. Palaces of art and in¬ 
dustry are crowded with exhibits, and an engineer¬ 
ing friend says that one of the most interesting in 
the latter is a Diesel internal combustion, electric 
propelled locomotive, self-contained, smoke-consum¬ 
ing, which has double the speed and traction power 
at half the cost of the present American type, an in¬ 
vention which, developed, may make greater changes 
in transportation than Stephenson’s original. The 
application of electricity in the exhibition is every¬ 
where most helpful. Canada shows Niagara’s falls 
and rapids, not life size, but with real water, illu¬ 
minated with marvelous fidelity, in color and motion, 
to the real thing; wheat is harvested, stored and 
shipped, reapers and trains moved by electricity; 
Australia shears sheep, grinds wheat and bakes bread 
with it, before the eyes of wondering crowds; indeed 
the spectacular and sensational effects are every¬ 
where greatly heightened and emphasized by this 
new and most useful servitor. 

Crowds a Great Object Lesson. 

But the people, the ceaseless flow of humanity, 
anywhere from a quarter to half a million on good 
days, and rarely less than a hundred thousand on 
bad days, are the greatest show and object-lesson of 
Wembley. They are the typical, representative Brit¬ 
ish common people, taking themselves and their 
pleasures seriously, believing they are the real things, 
have made the world what it is, and are responsible 
for its future, not only for themselves, but for all 
the rest of mankind. 

One leaves Wembley, and it may as well be left 
here, with the conviction that the great reason for 
its being is to show Britons, overcrowded, unem¬ 
ployed and congested, how much better off they 
might make themselves under their own flag else¬ 
where ; and to notify the rest of the world that 
Brittania not only rules the waves but a very con¬ 
siderable part of the land, and intends to keep con¬ 
trol of both. Kipling chose “farflung” happily and 
wisely, and the American who can’t read at Wembley 
the writing on the international wall must be blind. 
Anglo-American understanding, confidence and co¬ 
operation make world peace certain and perpetual, 
though the League of Nations, an iridescent dream, 
fades and fails. 

British Schoolships at Anchor. 

Four British school ships, “Exmouth,” “Worces¬ 
ter,” “Arethusa,” and “Warspite” are anchored, and 
have been for years, above us in the Thames, the 
line extending by intervals of two or three miles to 
Greenwich, ten miles or so nearer London. Each has 
a separate field and function. “Exmouth” receives 
the product of charitable and correctional schools. 


as young as eleven; “Worcester” takes only gentle¬ 
men’s sons, mostly high school graduates who pay 
$500 a year and may become masters, while the 
other two are filled from reformatories and simi¬ 
lar recruiting grounds. “Worcester” and “Huonay,” 
similar ships at Singapore, are keen rivals, and many 
of the best British navigators and commanders hold 
their diplomas. 

Capt. Riesenberg, of the Newport, called the 
other day on the first two, our nearest neighbors. 
Shoving our noisy little launch up to the “Ex¬ 
mouth,” a “bos’n” invited us aboard, explaining that 
nearly all the officers and students were away on 
vacation. Once aboard it was obvious that Admiral 
Noah had nothing on the “Exmouth,” and that with 
an ark as her model he could have accommodated 
any of his neighbors who didn’t believe there was 
going to be much of a shower. Second of its name, 
the “Exmouth,” eighty feet abeam and nearly five 
times as long, four or five decks high, and held fast 
in the Thames by six anchors to bow and as many 
at stern, is really a floating school, differing from a 
house ashore only that it has water under it instead 
of land. On its upper deck, cased in with wooden 
walls, twenty-five feet high and open to sun and 
sky, is a great play and athletic field, the whole width 
of the ship. On panels along the sides are painted 
the names of Rodney, Hawke, Anson, Benbow, Hood 
and other British naval heroes, while against the 
break of the poop. Nelson’s immortal “England ex¬ 
pects every man to do his duty” is blazoned in gold 
on a red background which might be more effective 
if it were not in German lettering. 

Boys Welcome Visitors. 

As the sound of strange voices was heard, the 
lads, like rats, came running out of hidden holes and 
corners, evidently tickled to see company. Two-piece 
suits, blue bell-buttoned trousers and undershirts 
was the bill of dress, but they all were scrupulously 
clean, looked and acted as though they were having 
a good time of it, and as the launch shoved off 
climbed around and swarmed over the gangway like 
a bunch of bees on a lump of sugar and gave us 
three hearty cheers. 

On the “Worcester” it was different. A smart, 
well-set-up, soldierly looking cadet, cap and trousers 
white and short, roundabout jacket blue, received us 
at the landing stage, built like a permanent float 
alongside, and having sent our cards to the officer 
of the deck, ushered us up through a stately entrance, 
like a porte cochere, and over the side, much as if 
we were the guest of some fine old Manor Hall. 
Lieut. Sharp, in command, received us cordially, 
though nearly everybody was in town preparing for 
prize presentations. He told us a whole lot about 
the “Worcester” and its school methods and gave us 
its “Dogwatch,” a handsome illuminated magazine 
issued by the cadets, of which he is senior editor. 
The call was brief, if welcome, but the Newport’s 
dinner time, like the Thames tides, wait for no man. 

The Anchorites and Seven Seas Club, social or¬ 
ganizations of sea-faring merchant adventurers, re- 


19 


tired skippers and others of that ilk, gave a dinner 
at Alderton’s, in Fleet street, the other evening to 
the veteran Capt. Woodget, commander of the fa¬ 
mous old Australian clipper Cutty Sark, whose 
“log,” by Basil Lubbock, has become a classic in 
marine literature. Again in commission, the old ship, 
fully rigged and ready for sea, is doing duty as float¬ 
ing headquarters at the yacht race this week, and 
possibly may go again into active service. 

Riesenberg Speaks at Banquet. 

The feature of the evening was not, however, the 
recital of the speed trials and wonderful runs of 
former and better times, but the eloquent and con¬ 
vincing exposition by Capt. Riesenberg, of the New¬ 
port, of the absolute necessity of sails and their 
handling in training men for any kind of position, 
either on steam or sailing vessels, and demolishing 
the theory that on steamships this training and 
knowledge are obsolete and superfluous. Only by 
experience on deck and in all sorts of weather 
under sail can young men learn to handle ships at 
sea, and, still more important, make quick decisions 
and command men in emergencies. 

The applause which punctuated Capt. Riesenberg’s 
straight from the shoulder talk, and the congratula¬ 
tions which detained him long after the company 
broke up, showed that he had carried his point and 


convinced his auditors. As for the dinner itself, it is 
worth noting that in substance and service it was 
much better than similar affars at home and that 
the Eighteenth Amendment was honored rather in 
the breach than the observance. 

Little time or space is left for the events preced¬ 
ing the Newport’s arrival, and possibly of less im¬ 
portance, the American and British advertising 
agents and the lawyers’ conventions. Each was fully 
covered by cable; all that a postscript may add is 
that blessings apparently have impressed as they took 
flight; that everywhere are kind and appreciative 
words of the visitors and their messages and 
memories. 

The American Chamber of Commerce in London, 
which has just gone into new and spacious quarters 
in Aldwych Court, will print in its August Bulletin 
an article by President Powell, in which he says 
that Wembley will force America and other import¬ 
ers to excel themselves, in every possible way, to 
render their products more attractive and valuable. 
And in pursuance of that prediction and to promote 
its fulfillment, the London chamber has already 
addressed to the Brooklyn chamber, bespeaking close 
affiliation and co-operation, an overture which ought 
to be met half way. 

H. L. B. 


20 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS IN FAMOUS 

OLD ANTWERP 


Medieval and Modern Capital of Continent Gives School a Hospitable Welcome — 
Town Hall and Docks Objects of Interest—Notes on American Emigration and 
Shipping. 


VI. 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

ANTWERP, Belgium, Aug. 10, 1924.—The New¬ 
port slipped her Gravesend moorings just after 11 
last Wednesday morning and made fast to the great 
granite wall which makes the river front of the 
medieval city almost exactly seventy-two hours 
later. 

Now, neither of these interesting operations is 
always as easy as it looks or sounds. Imagine your¬ 
self standing on top of a mooring buoy, a sort of 
glorified and overgrown barrel, lying horizontally 
awash, nothing about you but the sky, nor near you 
to catch hold of, nothing around you but a roaring, 
rushing tide, running like a millrace and more than 
fifty feet deep, and you’ll get some idea of what 
New York owes the “nervy” cadet who knocked out 
the pin that morning, released the ship and saved 
the State fifteen dollars, which one of the river men 
wanted for doing the trick. And then coming along¬ 
side the pier Saturday morning. For two days an¬ 
chored two miles below the city, awaiting a berth; 
it was an operation, also in swift, running tide, four¬ 
teen feet on each turn and requiring utmost patience 
and skill. The Newport nosed and surged her way 
in sidewise, until, as she lies, our blue ensign on the 
bow of it kisses the Belgian flag from a huge freighter 
forward, while at the stern our Stars and Stripes 
flaunt themselves in the face and almost within touch 
of another Belgian freighter for the Congo. 

Officials Return Call. 

However, all’s well that ends well. Baron Hoet- 
velt, the colonial Governor, and the burgomaster 
promptly returned the official calls of the day be¬ 
fore, inspecting the ship thoroughly, with many ex¬ 
pressions of approval; a large liberty party leaped 
like colts ashore immediately after dinner and 
everybody rejoiced that the long delay and suspense 
were over. For we had come down the Thames with 
the afternoon tide Wednesday, crossed the North 
Sea, entered the Scheldt in its Holland mouth at 
dawn, come up fifty-eight tortuous miles to Ant¬ 
werp, to read, on the brilliant, sunlit dials of its 
great cathedral 7 A. M., only to find every river 
front occupied, and after a magnificent gesture 
sweeping around and across the river downstream. 


to return to a safe anchorage far below out of 
harm’s way. 

And that rain-coated, straw-hatted party, sitting 
helpless in a driving shower for hours in a launch 
which would go only one way, and that not the 
right one, until the Pittsburgh’s powerful motor came 
to their aid and towed them home, firmly believe 
that Job might have lost his reputation for patience 
had he been subjected to the uncomfortable test 
inflicted on them. 

Two interesting visits were paid, before the show¬ 
ers, that afternoon. Where we now lie was the 
Belgium school ship L’Avenir, taking on her last 
stores, and filled with visitors saying farewell to 
officers and cadets, going in a few hours for Tampa, 
Fla., first port in a cruise which may last a year. 
L’Avenir is a roomy 3,000-ton, steel four-master 
with “sky sails,” a vessel three times the size of the 
Newport, and has a record of seventeen and a half 
knots under sail. She has but sixty cadets against 
our ninety—four and twelve officers against our six, 
a chaplain against our none and, unlike the New¬ 
port, does, or tries to do, a freighting business 
among the ports visited. 

Prefer British to Belgian Blood. 

Competition for cadet appointments is keen and 
examinations are severe, and yet, though the courses 
are thorough and training practical to a high degree, 
good authorities say that Belgian owners are more 
likely to pick British than Belgian commanders for 
their own ships. The idea seems to be that there is 
something in the British blood and stuff which meets 
emergencies and develops “Captains Courageous” to 
a higher degree and with greater certainty, and that 
Belgian material, highly specialized and carefully 
trained, fits better into the subordinate positions. 
L’Avenir, nominally owned and operated by a private 
corporation, nets a handsome deficit every year, 
which is made up by the Belgian government. 

If anybody has any doubts of the material from 
which the American Merchant Marine can be re¬ 
cruited and the manner in which it most profitably 
can be trained Capt. Evans, of the armored cruiser 
Pittsburgh, can promptly and effectively dispel them. 
Capt. Evans, son of the late Admiral “Bob” Evans, 
ready always with his ships and his boys for a fight 


21 




or a frolic, is still remembered along Sands street 
in Brooklyn, which used to lead to the Navy Yard, 
and bases his opinion upon a long and rare combi¬ 
nation of theory and practice. In his stateroom 
hangs a large framed photograph of the old Monon- 
gahela under full sail, every stitch of canvas, includ¬ 
ing “stu’n’sails,” drawing, and you do not wonder 
that an officer who learned his business in that 
school talks with spirit and understanding. 

A steamship driven by an engine says Capt. Evans 
pertinently and forcibly, “is nothing but one with a 
stern wind all the time”; and sailors are made of 
men who can meet all kinds of wind in all kinds 
of weather and, what is more, command all kinds of 
men and get out of every man the best that is in 
him. The two commanders of the Pittsburgh and 
Newport are in full and exact accord as to the se¬ 
lection and the training of boys for the merchant 
marine, and taxpayers along the Hudson and 
around Albany will have an opportunity next fall to 
see what they mean expressed in actual fact and 
terms of the human equation. “L’Avenir” anchored 
at sunset in the fog just ahead of us, but both were 
away with the daylight, the Belgian for America and 
the Pittsburgh, calling at Amsterdam for Admiral 
Andrews, for the Mediterranean. 

March to Town Hall. 

Antwerp, which wirelessed its invitation to the 
mid-Atlantic, has been hospitable to the Newport 
and its cadets. This morning the battalion, in shore 
uniform, marched in column along the quay. West 
street you might call it in Manhattan, and through 
the principal streets to the stately Town Hall, where 
they were received by the Burgomaster’s represen¬ 
tative and shown through the public halls and as¬ 
sembly rooms, each brilliantly lighted the better to 
display its artistic treasures and historic carvings 
and statuary. That Antwerp was once the art center 
of the world long ago was established, but to a first 
or any other time spectator the revelations of the 
Town Hall make an abstract historic fact a real sur¬ 
prise and continuing wonder. Next to the paint¬ 
ings, historic and allegorical, and the portraits of 
Belgian royalties and notables, the excellent preser¬ 
vation and perfect condition of every example is 
itself equal cause for admiration. 

To stand in the Raadzand, or Common Council 
chamber, whose desks bear the nameplates of the 
present incumbents, and read on the vertical silver 
panels, between the windows, almost to the lofty 
ceiling, names of burgomasters from 1411, nearly a 
century before Columbus discovered America, down 
to that of to-day’s host, is to admire the civic pride 
which has held this old port and fort of the Scheldt 
autonomous and prosperous during more than five 
centuries, and to wonder from what schoolships, 
after so long a time, will come cadets who will read 
on New York’s municipal walls the names, an un¬ 
broken list, of chief magistrates who have done as 
much for her honor and prosperity. 

Capt. Riesenberg made good use of the opportu¬ 
nity, as the boys were studying the lists, the ceiling 


and frescoes which looked down on them and the 
stately portraits which surrounded them, to remind 
the cadets that they were reading real honor rolls, 
names of mayors, not weaklings or slackers sur¬ 
rounded by aldermen who were grafters. 

In the Hall of Marriages. 

The hall of marriages, where civil ceremonies are 
performed, with the huge frescoes telling the story 
from earliest history to the first civil mariage in 
Antwerp, in 1796, could also give points to local 
magistrates and Latter Day Saints, even though 
they were not strong on the artistic temperament; 
and so on, through the burgomaster’s private office, 
adorned with panels, sculpture and statues of Bibli¬ 
cal scene and subjects. The catalogue of the art of 
the Town Hall would be long and the detail tedious, 
but the contrast between what we saw and heard 
this morning and what we never see or hear at home 
and the lessons in reverence for religion, ancestry, 
civic pride and municipal glory, are not less impres¬ 
sive and suggestive. If New York, when it is old, 
is to be as proud and beautiful in its municipal 
capitol as Antwerp, it has no time to lose. 

From the great market place the cadets were 
marched, and it was rather a long and weary pil¬ 
grimage over the solid Belgium pavement, to the 
basin of the port, which has been under development 
and steady enlargement for the last fifty years, until 
to-day only two in the world handle more com¬ 
merce than this. 

Upon a municipal tug the boys piled and were 
taken the complete tour of the basin, through miles 
of steamships of all sorts and conditions, flying 
every flag except the one with which we used to be 
most familiar. Belgian was naturally the most fre¬ 
quent, with the British a close second, but on the 
entire tour only the Miantucket, a Seattle built, and 
the Sahale, a Black Diamond Hog Islander, displayed 
the Stars and Stripes, though, as if to make the 
absence more conspicuous, the “Manhattan” disport¬ 
ed the British flag. Along with, and often alongside, 
the big fellows were the little ones, the canal boats, 
long, narrow of beam and deeply laden, which ply 
the interior waterways of the continent, collecting 
and distributing the vast tonnage of this port. 

Evolution of Woman Shown. 

On these, too, the evolution of woman has reached 
a point not often attained at home. Women handle 
tillers, these queer horizontal wheels by which the 
canal boat is steered, and never seen until in the 
Scheldt; tote bags of grain on their heads across 
decks and pour the contents through chutes into the 
boat lying below; and the strangest thing of all ap¬ 
pear to enjoy it, laughing and hailing welcome to the 
blue-jacketed, white-capped cadets as the tug carried 
them rapidly by. One would say, even after an hour 
in the basin and a swift, superficial survey of its 
activities, that the United States Shipping Board, the 
New York Port Authority and the American woman 
suffragist might each and all think it worth while to 


22 


make a “survey” of what goes on in this great and 
prosperous harbor of activity. 

One thing the Authority would learn is that there 
is no division of power or responsibility, and another 
that the city has sole control of finances, tolls, 
charges, capital investment and physical development, 
and no private or corporate interest has opportu¬ 
nity to interfere. Solidity and permanence are 'vO^ri— 
ten over and into every feature. The Emperor Napo¬ 
leon began it when he built the first pier, which still 
bears his name, more than a hundred years ago, 
while the wooden structures allowed for so long to 
fringe our rivers would be considered by these 
people as jokes or tragedies. 

Two or three things, on the outside, may be worth 
noting here, as of contemporaneous human interest. 
The American consulate in Antwerp is struggling 
with an exacting and difficult problem in the admin¬ 
istration of the new American immigration law. In 
round nummbers the quota for the current year, be¬ 
ginning July 1, is 500, and already the application 
is more than four times that number. From Russia, 
Poland, Germany and all Central Europe they have 
flocked here to embark for the land of the brave 
and the home of the free, only to find the door 
closed in their faces. 

Emigrakts in Quandary. 

Their own countries will not permit them to re¬ 
turn, for they already have expatriated themselves; 
Belgium does not want them, she has too many of 
her own, and America, according to her Washington 
lawmakers, will not accept them. Protests against 
detention, largely from the Congressmen who 


enacted the law, are numerous and wrathy. In some 
cases, real hardships, involving separation of parents 
and children, seem imminent, but in the end the 
condition will doubtless be improved and the opera¬ 
tion of the law in the long run justify the faith and 
expectation of its friends. 

A more encouraging factor in the situation is 
found in the fact that the carnival of corruption and 
graft in shipping and marine circles, which followed 
the war and the American merchant marine forcing 
process, is now definitely over, and what business is 
done is straight and normal. Captains who jumped 
from all sorts of jobs and all sorts of places into the 
American shipping business, that they might get rich 
easy while the getting was good, no longer present 
for certification padded and inflated invoices, five 
and ten times market prices for ships’ purchases. 
Possibly, next winter, if any unsatisfied appetite 
for investigation remains in Washington, consular 
accounts of ships’ expenses in foreign ports would 
furnish interesting and profitable exploring ground, 
and explanation of why American ships lose so 
much money. 

What the people of Antwerp think of the New¬ 
port and its company may be inferred when nearly 
a thousand visitors came on board yesterday, Sun¬ 
day, and almost as many to-day, a local holi¬ 
day, which may mean pleasant memories on both 
sides, when we leave on Wednesday morning’s tide 
for Cadiz and Old Spain, once ruler of Brabant and 
Flanders. The shadow of Charles V. every day falls 
on the Town Hall, but not on the citizens in or 
around it. 

H, L. B. 


23 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS ON BELGIAN 

BATTLEFIELDS 


Hundred Mile Automobile Trip Through beleaguered Cities of Ten Years Ago — 
Scars of War Rapidly Disappearing—jl Little Trouble in Which flmericans Figured 
and Which ^iiCight Have Ended Seriously. 


VII. 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

ANTWERP, Aug. 11, 1924.—It was exactly 8:30, 
yesterday morning, when we four climbed into the 
big automobile, on the pier, alongside the Newport, 
and when we left it in the same place, fourteen 
hours late", the register showed that we had traveled 
almost exactly two hundred miles. If anybody ob¬ 
jects that we broke either Divine or speed laws, let 
it be argued out. What better way to observe or 
suspend either, than by going over the ground and 
among the scenes which mean as much to this realm 
and the present day as Marathon to Greece or 
Gettysburg to America? 

The day for the journey was auspicious, too, since 
it was the tenth anniversary of that August Sunday 
on which the long reign of terror, of fire and sword, 
of devastation and starvation, was let loose on this 
peaceful people, this beautiful fertile country, one 
of the fairest and happiest on which the sun shines. 
We traveled swiftly and rapidly, and the day was a 
continuous “movie,” a panorama in which the an¬ 
cient, recent and present were mingled, views and 
impressions sharp and fleeting, of which only a few, 
the high spots, will bear transference to paper and 
transmission over sea. 

Start for Battlefields. 

To reach the battlefields and beleaguered cities 
from Antwerp, you begin by ferrying across the 
Scheldt; and this is the way they do it on a river 
with a fourteen-foot tide. Instead of entering and 
leaving a slip head on, as our East and North River 
boats, they come along sidewise, make fast to a 
landing platform, which rises and falls automatically 
with the tide, all vehicular traffic being admitted and 
discharged amidships, at right angles to the boat 
and its course, while passengers disport themselves 
in “any old place” over the spacious single-deck, 
side-wheeler. The whole business is so simple, safe 
and practical that one wonders why some bright 
Brooklynite, they say there are such, had not 
thought of it before and tried it out on some of 
our ancient and honorable ferries, and the idea is 
thus modestly passed along to our Department of 
Plant and Structures. As to tolls, seven francs, 
equivalent to-day to about thirty-five cents, paid the 
freight for the party and car. 


Once over the river, the route strikes straight out 
southwest, thirty miles to Ghent, a great manufac¬ 
turing centre, and where important American history 
has also been made. If one wants in his mind’s eye 
a map of the day’s route, it might be easy to imagine 
a bisected pear, of which the stem is Antwerp-Ghent 
and the circumference Bruges, Zeebrugge, Blanken- 
bergh and Ostend, on the North Sea, with Dix- 
mude, Ypres and Courtrai on the homeward run, 
all the way over solid Belgian pavements, except a 
few miles of asphalt behind the dunes, overlooking 
the North Sea. At once, not ten minutes from the 
river, 

“Every prospect pleases and only man is vile” 
comes to mind, as you run rapidly along, under 
avenues of stately elms, lindens and other deciduous 
trees, and among wheat and oats, ripening for the 
harvest, long columns of stacks already gathered 
and placed in position, with the precision of a 
soldier and accuracy of an engineer. Dense, deep 
green, profuse and impervious foliage is the domi¬ 
nant note of the landscape’s color scheme, and once 
in a while the flash of water or the tawny covered 
deck of a canalboat reminds one that this is to-day 
really as much the “Low Country” as when Holland 
ruled it. The white funnel and tapering masts of 
a big ocean freighter, making its way to Antwerp, 
seen over the fields and against the green trees, has 
a distinctly bizarre effect. 

Fields and Farms Deserted. 

Belgian farming is intensive. Nowhere is a fence 
or a sign of one, unless it be the pretense of a hope 
visible, and as for stones, rock ledges, swamps or 
any of the obstacles of the American fields, all are 
conspicuous by absence. Land is too valuable here 
to be held out of production and that, possibly, as 
well as that man is a gregarious animal, has some¬ 
thing to do with the fact that here everybody lives 
in villages, and while the views of the fields range 
far and wide, like those in the corn belts of Illinois, 
not a home or homestead may come within sight. 

But if fields and farms were silent and deserted, 
the roads were vocal and the villages populous. All 
along, bicyclers, men and women, were speeding, 
and at Locre we had excellent opportunity to see a 
small city, en fete. The display of Belgian flags 
along the main street was profuse, and even one 


24 




tiny American was recognized, while, when we 
reached the market place, “Welcome to Leopold” on 
a great white arch spanning the street explained it 
all. The portly mayor, in frock coat and tall hat, 
a broad tricolored sash “Sam Browned” over and 
around his manly form, really made an imposing 
appearance, and the athletic clubs, in uniform await¬ 
ing the royal visitor, were a clean, fine-looking body 
of yojjngsters. Some of the street decorations were 
especially effective, the combination of evergreens 
in wreaths and loops over-arching the street and 
circling above it was especially novel and pleasing. 

Belgian Floral Gardens. 

Just before reaching Ghent we struck the flower 
zone, once lucrative from the profits of the Ameri¬ 
can market, now quite the other way from the oper¬ 
ations of our tariff. However, even Congressmen 
cannot permanently obstruct the love of nature and 
of beauty; so nowhere could fields of cloth of gold, 
of deep red roses, of variegated and multitudinous 
sweet peas, with many other new and strange speci¬ 
mens be found more richly blooming than in these 
Belgian floral gardens, along which we swiftly 
passed, while the familiar New England hollyhocks, 
taller and deeper in blood-red hue than of old, seem¬ 
ed to remind one of auld lang syne—or possibly 
were a reincarnation of the blood shed to save these 
old homes of the fathers and fatherland. 

Accent and emphasis were added to this brilliant 
color scheme by the sombre background of ever¬ 
green, which the thrifty nurserymen were bringing 
on in all stages of larger growth and wider mar¬ 
kets, yet it seemed to constitute a touch of pathos, 
of solemnity, to which we were not insensible. 

A few moments and hurried survey of the 
cathedral and we passed on from Ghent toward 
Bruges, soon to hear from our chauffeur, a veteran: 
“Now we are entering the war zone, and from that 
point on every house is new.” In a minute or two 
we made out the first blockhouse, a structure of 
concrete, possibly ten feet square and as many high, 
and soon so numerous that we lost count of them. 
They were built by the Germans on their first inva¬ 
sion as a line of possible defense. Some were cap¬ 
tured and recaptured several times, others aban¬ 
doned, and when the war was over and the Ger¬ 
mans left for good many were demolished by the 
owners of the land that it might again be brought 
into production. Trenches were long ago filled or 
overgrown, and were it not for these gray, ungainly 
pill boxes all this country would show hardly a sign 
of the desolation of ten years ago. To the casual 
observer the “come back” of Belgium, after the war 
and the German occupation, is a far more interest¬ 
ing and not less amazing spectacle than the scenes 
enacted here ten years ago. 

Visit to Bruges Cathedral. 

Bruges, historic and venerable, with its famous 
chimes, silent except for a weekly evening concert, 
detained us but a short time, since our errand was 
of inspection, not of minute study and comparison. 
Fortunately we met the worshippers, leaving the 


cathedral after the morning service, a large, devout 
and orderly company, and only the passing view 
was necessary to convince one of the wonder and 
mystery of the art and religions which in combina¬ 
tion have found expression and commanded the 
admiration of Christendom for centuries. No such 
stained glass windows may elsewhere be seen in 
such sharpness of outline and vividness of color, 
for fortunately the sun was bright outside, while 
on every hand are chapels, shrines, tablets, panels 
and votive contributions which, not less than the 
engraved stone beneath the feet, tell of centuries of 
noble lives, of faith and devotion. 

Then a whirl through the narrow, tortuous streets, 
peering into the spotless rooms, dressed in white, of 
houses more than a thousand years old, some with 
windows only in the roof, that they the better might 
defend themselves from street attack; and out over 
the bridge, by the eleventh century castle, through 
the convent grounds, where the American and Eng¬ 
lish artists and art students were sketching and the 
swans lazily floating on the stagnant water, we drove 
forward to the northwest and the North Sea. 

It’s a short run, less than half an hour, from 
Bruges to Zeebrugge, scene of the gallant Vindictive 
exploit, which broke up this German submarine base, 
and in the annals of the British Navy paralleled 
Trafalgar and the Nile. Nothing but a few disman¬ 
tled hulks, half buried in the sand, remain to remind 
us of the great adventure and we hadn’t the time to 
walk a mile or more along the mole which circles 
around the harbor to the lighthouse a mile or more 
away. To Blankenbergh, the road runs behind, a 
mile or so, the dunes, which front the North Sea, 
thirty or forty miles or so, to Nieuport, the final 
stand and forlorn hope of Belgium during the dark¬ 
est days. 

Dunes Form Defense From Sea. 

Not small, easily climbed affairs, these dunes, 
like ours of the Rockaways and the South Shore, 
but in some places a hundred feet or more high, 
almost a mountain range, and a perfect defense 
from the sea. Massive gun emplacements are still 
in position, and it is evident to-day that British 
descent upon this coast would have been desperate 
and futile, a repetition of Gallipoli. The Excelsior 
Belle-vue at Blankenbergh commands a lordly out¬ 
look, on the beach sloping a half mile to the sea, 
dotted with bathers and bathing wagons and shade 
chairs; they do these things somewhat better than 
we; but if you cared to think, either indoors or out, 
that you beheld Brighton or Manhattan in their 
palmiest days, the imagination would not have been 
overworked. All the way to Ostend the tale was the 
same, on the right the far-reaching placid sea, under 
the August haze, the bathers and strollers, and on the 
left the dunes, with their dismantled fortifications 
and fTequently ruins of five and six story hotels, 
destroyed by shell fire or conflagration. 

Just as we were leaving Blankenbergh, however, an 
incident occurred which for a while engaged our 
attention more than land or sea, than events or 


25 


memorials of the past. On the bridge over the canal 
a car, containing two men, the younger driving, and 
on the rear seat two or three women, drew rather 
rapidly alongside, upon which we put on more speed 
and forged up into the lead, which caused the young 
fellow to go us one better and cut across our bow, 
forcing us to stop or run risk of a collision. 

An Unprovoked Assault. 

While standing in our tracks, the occupant of our 
front seat could hardly believe his senses as he saw 
the other chauffeur leap from his car and run, with 
loud language and threatening gestures, to ours, leap 
on our running board and let out a furious left¬ 
hander at our own chauffeur. A quick dodge, a clear 
parry and the rattle of crashing glass told that his 
blow had missed and that the front of our car was 
smashed. Meanwhile, the two lads in the tonneau 
were in wild terror, shrieking: “They’re going to 
kill daddy,” and it certainly looked like it, while the 
outside passenger was busy wondering whether he 
would next see an automatic in the hands of the 
assailant, or the big stick which he knew daddy had 
with him, laid about his head. Discretion, however, 
proved to be the better part of American valor. 

The combatants descended to the ground, the 
crowd gathered, the police, as usual, came late into 
the picture and drawing off the assailant out of 
hearing, held a conference of half an hour or so, 
after which they invited our chauffeur to come over 
and told him he was in the wrong. Later we learned 
that the occupants of the attacking car, for neither 
touched the other during the whole affair, were a 
Brussels judge grown rich during the war, and his 
son, and in the Antwerp court their “pull” would 
doubtless prevail. Anyhow, the Americans agreed 
that a more dastardly, unprovoked assault on an in¬ 
nocent, competent chauffeur who, in eighteen years’ 
driving, has never been fined or penalized, could 
scarcely have been made, and that, for themselves, 
they were lucky in getting out of the scrape with 
only half an hour’s detention. 

Dismantled Guns Still in Place. 

From Ostend, with its congestion of railway 
tracks, canals, docks and piers, and its basins full of 
fishing boats, its great kursaal overlooking, with at¬ 
tendant lesser resorts, the western sea, almost to the 
chalk cliffs of Dover, the road swerves back into 
the country. Just before entering the city, you make 
a detour to see the “German battery,” the big gun 
which threw shells into Dunkirk, still dismantled 
and in position, while close to the roadside, almost 
under foot, lies a huge shattered fragment of two or 
three tons, black with rust, of a similar discarded 
piece of heavy ordnance, surrendered but not taken 
away. Beyond Nieuport, through whose unloosed 
gates poured waters which flooded the surrounding 
country, and saved for Belgium and the map of 


Europe the smallest, most historic remnant of its 
realm, the topography of the terrain changes com¬ 
pletely. 

The level plain gives way to rolling undulations, 
reminding one of western Kansas and Nebraska, and 
from the higher elevations one looks far over thous¬ 
ands of acres checkered with wheat, barley and flax, 
ready for the harvest; hundreds, it may be thous¬ 
ands, of new houses, clustered in villages or drawn 
up in long parallels, all of pink brick and red tiled, 
showing fair and brave against the green hedges 
and forests and the blue horizon. The scars of war 
have almost completely disappeared, and to-day it 
would be hard to find anywhere on God’s green 
earth a region more peaceful, prolific and apparently 
prosperous than this very scene of horrors ten years 
ago. 

At sorely stricken Ypres, a band concert was 
heard by thousands crowding the street of the shat¬ 
tered Cloth Hall, the rebuilding of which on lines 
of its original beauty is already well advanced. 
Yet though the scars are healing, memories will re¬ 
main forever. In a little village near Ypres, on the 
spot where Guynemer, the French ace, fell to his 
death, is an artistic monument, crowned by a swiftly 
flying eagle, to his honor; a colossal granite Cana¬ 
dian in war helmet, only head and bust carved, the 
reminder of the stone being in the rough, unfin¬ 
ished, surveys the field where lie the Dominion sons 
who fell hereabouts; and cemeteries of black crosses 
in long rows and decorated with flowers tell the 
story of Belgian valor—to which those of the Ger¬ 
man dead, neglected and uncared for, offer sharp 
and significant contrast. More impressive than any¬ 
thing else were the frequent monuments of stone, 
some by the roadside, others in the market place, 
inscribed “Ici arrete,” or the equivalent phrase, with 
proper date, indicating that on this spot and day was 
stopped the German advance, the tide which threat¬ 
ened to engulf Belgium and later civilization. 

Scene of Cavell Execution. 

By this time the lingering sun had set, and as we 
sped eastward and homeward, from Ghent over the 
road of the morning, we agreed that though we 
hadn’t climbed a grade of one-half of one per cent.; 
seen a stone as big as a man’s fist, a ragged or un¬ 
cleanly child, a man or woman in mourning, all 
day we had taken in much that would never be for¬ 
gotten and as we paid the chauffeur 700 francs for 
400 kilometres (figure it out for yourself, with the 
franc at 19.50 to the dollar) it was, as Con used to 
say in “the Shaughraun,” “worth it.” 

This afternoon, we have stood by the place of 
Edith Cavell’s execution in Brussels, and brought 
thence impressions and memories which will not soon 
be effaced. 

H. L. B. 


26 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS IN ANTWERP 

AND BRUSSELS 


tACeu^Yorf^ Schoolship Crew %)isits Scene of Edith CavelVs Execution, Where’thirty-five 
Heroes Were Shot—American Consular bureau of Commercial Information—Secret of 
Happiness In Belgium. 


VIIL 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

AT SEA OFF COAST OF PORTUGAL. Aug. 
19.—The ruddy, blond, gray-capped chauffeur by his 
car in the Grand Palace of the Brussels station could 
speak but little English, and that little, though better 
than our French, wasn’t worth much. When we 
told him our time was short, it was late afternoon, 
but that we wanted to see the place of the execution 
of Edith Cavell, he “caught on’’ instantly. 

“Oui, oui,” he replied eagerly, and quicker than 
it takes to tell we were off. Climbing the long hill, 
past the lately completed Royal Palace, with a dis¬ 
tant view of the magnificent Palace of Justice, one 
of the monumental court houses of the world, not 
excepting New York’s, on its imposing height close 
to and yet above the city, and in its pristine marble 
purity, now sadly dimmed, we were whirled rapidly 
along the boulevard leading straight to the eastern¬ 
most outliers and scattered dwellings of the capital. 
Turning sharply and down a steep declivity, we 
passed through an open gate, on either side standing 
long rows of sheet or corrugated iron barracks built 
by the Germans for prisons, now taken over and 
populous with women and children, derelicts of the 
war for whom housing has not yet been provided. 
Streets, alleys and paths, crossing at right angles, 
were full of life, human and animal, and it was 
evidently another case where the plowshares had 
produced more rapidly and generously than the 
sword. 

Scene of Martyr’s Execution. 

Before us rose a long three-story, towered brick 
building, reached by a winding, upgrade road, 
through a wide open space, and on its level plateau, 
before the main entrance, our driver halted. No 
sign of life was an 3 rwhere visible; rattling of doors 
and inspection of windows brought no response, 
while around the corner, blown by the stiff breeze 
and dripping with the shower, came a young man 
and woman who exclaimed in English: “Isn’t it too 
bad! A holiday, after hours, and everything closed!’’ 

But our chauffeur bade us climb in again, and tak¬ 
ing the wet wayfarers, honeymooners, too, they 
looked like, in with us, we ran rapidly around the 
extreme end of the building, and plunged down a 
deep, narrow, one-way road, almost overgrown with 
shrubbery, wellnigh impassable. A woman’s call ar¬ 


rested our progress; we could have gone but a few 
rods farther anyhow, and answering her summons, 
with difficulty turning the car, we climbed up the 
steep grade and halted before the open door. 

She knew as by instinct what we wanted, and in¬ 
viting us in, but without a word, piloted us down a 
steep-winding staircase to a floor far below, where, 
stretching away before us, was a long bare hall, pos¬ 
sibly a hundred feet by half the width, dimly lighted 
on one side by windows, darkened by clouds and 
spattered by rain. Half way down the hall the con¬ 
cierge led us, then turning sharply to the right we 
were in a sort of recess or enclosure, three or four 
feet above the ground and commanding a view of 
the small adjoining yard, slightly below our level. 
She pointed, not a word was said, none was neces¬ 
sary, and advancing to the rail, we saw a polished 
granite tablet, possibly twenty feet by fifteen, in¬ 
clined easily like an open book, before the spectator, 
and on it we read; 

Here, for Love of Country, 

35 Heroes were Shot by 
German Soldiers 

Names and dates in the columns followed, Miss 
Cavell’s in capitals being the fourth from the top 
in the left hand column, and the date “12:10:’17.” 
Beyond the simple, impressive tablet, resting on the 
ground and adorned with flags and flowers, was 
another memorial device of a bronze shield, tended 
faithfully by loving hands, and in the further back¬ 
ground evergreens, flowering shrubs, whose reverent 
caretaking made this a fitting setting to the never- 
to-be-forgotten tragedies, a retired, solemn shrine 
for future generations to seek out and ponder upon. 
Seen in the shadows and showers, the mournful 
spot was doubly impressive, and the casual guests, 
grateful for protection and transportation by the 
Americans, told us, before we delivered them at the 
station, returning to Bruges, where they had heard 
that just after the German execution, a secret mine 
had been discovered, timed to explode in a week, 
which would have completely demolished the famous 
belfry of that poetic, historic city. 

Belgian View on Reconstruction. 

Antwerp time and tides wait for no man. The 
Twentieth Century leaves the Grand Central sta¬ 
tion no more promptly than did the Newport that 


27 




staid and hospitable port. All morning, “This ship 
sails to-day at 3 P. M.,” had been displayed on a 
blackboard at the gangway, the last goodbyes and 
Godspeeds had been exchanged, and the great gilded 
hands of the lofty cathedral tower clock had no 
sooner quartered than the last line was cast off and 
the Sirius was gently pulling us around the sharp 
elbow of the Scheldt, and directly over our unwilling 
anchorage of two days upon entrance, that we might 
go unimpeded to the sea. While we are meandering 
in the late afternoon down the muddy river and 
surveying from the deck the green fields, leafy 
groves, shallows and tidal flats through which it 
finds its way, one or two postscripts may be worth 
while. 

The American Consulate in Antwerp is something 
far more than a place for viseing passports and 
helping stranded travelers and destitute seamen. 
Consul-General Messersmith maintains and efficiently 
operates a bureau of commercial and business infor¬ 
mation which would be a credit to any statistical or 
financial organization in New York, Washington or 
anywhere in the world. Four trained specialists de¬ 
vote their entire time to the work, the facts are 
gathered from impartial and authentic sources, and, 
with the added sanction of official authority, conti¬ 
nental publications are read and clipped, and the 
entire mass of material is systematized and cross- 
indexed so that the precise and definite information 
which any Brooklyn or other American merchant 
desires to have, in order to decide whether to enter 
this market or any tributary to it, is immediately 
available. Besides, much of the material is co-ordi¬ 
nated and discussed in independent monographs by 
Mr. Messersmith and his staff, and these frequent 
and occasional reports on the different markets, 
their tendencies and opportunities, on Belgian com¬ 
mercial law, usages and customs, are exhaustive and 
valuable. One, lately, on the progress and results of 
arbitration in Belgian commerce and business, is 
particularly profitable to Brooklyn and its Chamber 
of Commerce, which is making progress slowly 
along similar lines. 

Secret of Belgian Happiness. 

One remark, by an American of thirty-five years 
official service in Antwerp, and who knows this 


country and its people as few others, seems partic¬ 
ularly well worth quoting. 

“How do you explain it,” asked the questioner, 
“that everybody in Antwerp seems happy and con¬ 
tented, that Brussels is bright, crowded and gay, 
and even the war desert, with its thousands of new 
homes, begins to blossom like the rose?” 

“Well,” he replied, “I see it in this way. In France, 
they said, ‘We’ll spend the reparation money in re¬ 
building—when we get it.’ In Belgium they say, 
‘We’ll rebuild now and earn the money or get it 
somehow. Our children and grandchildren can take 
care of the reparation money, when they get it—if 
ever.’ ” 

The sun hangs low, behind the clouds, over the 
North Sea. We are in Holland, exchanging at 
Flushing, or Wissingen, if you prefer that style, the 
Belgian for the Dutch pilot, who leaves us at mid¬ 
night, to thread our way down the English Channel 
and the sunny south, more than a thousand miles 
away. 

Dawn found us at anchor in the roads of Calais, 
and two hours later looking, with glasses, far up the 
lock, through which the Channel boats pass and 
repass to the inner harbor, young “Billy,” who sees 
everything on board a litle sooner than anybody 
else, and proudly wears his engineer’s chevron, ob¬ 
served : “They’ve got the three of them, all right.” 
And as our returning whalecraft drew nearer in the 
morning haze it was seen that the youngster was 
right. 

The white-capped, uniformed convalescent from 
the Gravesend hospital in the sternsheets, and the 
two runaways from a Wapping jail, slouch-capped 
and black-coated, like two tramps (and brought over 
by the destroyer Yale from Gravesend the day be¬ 
fore) huddled in the bow. They came over the rail, 
the boys gave the glad hand to their unlucky inva¬ 
lid comrade, who had missed Antwerp; the two de¬ 
serters went silently and sullenly below and the 
Newport was again under way, heading on a long 
slant W. S. W. as old-timer sailormen would say, 
228 degrees in the new navy nomenclature, for 
Ushant, the southwestern point of France—and the 
historic, dreaded Bay of Biscay beyond. 

H. L. B. 


28 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS FROM CADIZ 

TO SEVILLE 


Early ^J^oming ^rip to ^l^etropolis of Southwestern Spain 'through Jlndalusia—Visit to 
the Cathedral and Alcazar — t^M^emories of Carmen Revived—Final Resting F^lace of 
Christopher Columbus—Original of ^M^adison Square Tower — Spanish'American 
Fair of 1927, 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

CADIZ, Spain, Aug. 23, 1924.—The morning light 
was breaking over the Andalusian Hills, yesterday, 
as three Newporters were swallowing, in the ward¬ 
room, hasty cups of coffee, preparing to depart for 
Seville. Not another soul on board except the watch 
was awake, the launch and its crew was at the foot 
of the gangway, and when you realize that 7:15, by 
this Spanish daylight-saving, means 5 :45 by standard 
time; that it’s a mile and a half to the landing 
and a mile more to the station; that this was the 
only day and the only train which would serve— 
you’ll probably admit that for once early rising was 
justified. 

Why this unearthly hour of beginning a train 
journey of sixty miles, even though at its slow speed 
and almost interminable stops it takes four hours, 
no one knows or apparently cares to know or ex¬ 
plain. It is a good illustration of the Spanish “man- 
ana” way of doing things; and besides that, may 
have advantages in awakening the inhabitants of a 
sleepy city who otherwise would never awake. “Look 
out that they don’t short change you,” warned one 
of our party who based his advice on experience in 
Mexico, “they all do it, banks, dealers, hackmen and 
everybody, hoping that through ignorance they’ll get 
by, or if not, pleading an unintentional mistake in 
reckoning,” which was perhaps the reason why, to 
lessen the chances of error, one bought the tickets 
for three. 

Home of Cervera’s Widow. 

Crawling out of Cadiz, over the narrow, sandy 
peninsula, cast up by the sea, since the Phoenicians, 
most daring of the world’s navigators, passed the 
Pillars of Hercules and, fifteen hundred centuries 
before the Christian era, they claim, founded on an 
island, Gades, now Cadiz, one comes first to San 
Fernando, headquarters of one of the three naval 
departments of Spain, and to Americans more inter¬ 
esting as the home of Madam Cervera, widow of 
the admiral who surrendered at Santiago, and on 
whom Admiral Andrews, lately in this port with the 
cruiser Pittsburgh, called—a venerable lady who, at 
the age of eighty-five, in full possession of her 
faculties, was attended by four sons, all in the naval 
service of their country. 


From San Fernando, on for miles, salt works 
occupy the landscape, while in the distance the sea, 
along which runs a daily motor service to Gibraltar, 
fills the background. No process of manufacture 
could be simpler, and the Onondaga and Wyoming 
salt makers of New York may be justified in their 
demands for tariff, which competes not only with 
cheap labor, but with the aid of the free and un¬ 
stinted sources of nature. Gravity, to permit the 
salt water to flow into the great, shallow, rectangular 
pits or lagoons, simply cut out of the tidal marsh, 
and the sunlight to evaporate the water during these 
long, rainless seasons. That is all there is to it. No 
power, raw material, buildings, depreciation, insur¬ 
ance or any of the capital charges of the American 
manufacturer. After a while evaporation is carried 
to a point where cheap, unskilled labor can be called 
in, and the long, pyramidal, white stacks of the 
finished product, many thousands of tons, looking 
like marble landmarks, for miles away in every 
direction, demonstrate that the Spanish coast dwell¬ 
ers make other things than hay while the sun shines. 

Vast Fields of Grain. 

Away from the sand, the sea and the marshes, the 
road strikes a northeasterly course, through Anda¬ 
lusia, and here comes another surprise. Arid and 
brown in August, the country reminds one of New 
Mexico or Southern California, with a dash of the 
Dakotas, but either the resemblance is superficial or 
the right of way has been laid over and across the 
hills and upland instead of the river valleys. As 
far as the eye can see are fields of grain, mostly 
wheat and barley, in various stages of harvest; 
some completely gathered and fall plowing under 
way; while in others herds of hundreds of cattle 
range among the stubble. 

Not a fence is anywhere visible. In the distance 
the white mansion or hacienda, and the farm build¬ 
ings, surrounded by trees, ilex, acacia, and others 
unknown to America, deciduous, yet always ever¬ 
green, almost concealing the places from view, 
which are widely scattered; often no neighbors 
within miles. It is easy to see why the rural school 
problem never has had a chance to exist in Spain. 
And so on, mile after mile, the landscape unrolls, 


29 




until, it may honestly be admitted, the monotony 
palls. 

Occasionally Indian corn, one stalk to a hill, moves 
its tattered tassels, like a solitary sentry, to the 
wind, while, in close proximity, droops the heavy- 
headed clusters of sorghum, like bunches of grapes. 
Cattle on a thousand hills were there, and while a 
moving train, even as slow as these in Spain, is not 
an ideal place to study livestock, it was easy to see 
that the reason for being of these black and red 
Andalusian herds was beef and hides rather than 
milk, butter or cheese. First cousins in build and 
frame of the Texas longhorns, black seemed the 
favorite color, though red was a close second, while 
all ages seemed to graze contentedly together. 
Droves of goats, flocks of turkeys, and pigs running 
wild around railroad stations, melon patches of a 
dozen acres, and others as large of peppers green 
and gold, also added variety to the view—a living, 
faithful moving picture of rural Spain and life in 
it to-day. 

Olive Growing Dominant Industry. 

While livestock and grain are evidently important 
factors in Andalusian agriculture, the olive is more 
plainly its dominant industry. Every sloping hill¬ 
side was covered with orchards of low, wide spread¬ 
ing, ungainly, densely green trees, whose fruit will 
be gathered in November. From the train order 
seemed absent, they looked carelessly scattered, but 
from the right point in passing, all fell into mathe¬ 
matical, almost military lines, and in some the land 
was plowed and cultivated. One young orchard, of 
thousands of trees, each swathed in straw, bound 
into a sharp eone, three feet or more at the base and 
six inches or less at the height of a tall man, a sort 
of windshield to proteet from drought, the green 
leafy top waving in freedom, was one of the most 
interesting and speetacular fields of the entire jour¬ 
ney. Rank after rank of mile long skirmishers in 
open order stood with military precision as if await¬ 
ing the sign to begin the engagement. 

Seville receives its railroad guests in a station on 
one side of a large, level public square stretching 
away, we might say, several blocks in either direc¬ 
tion, belted with trolley tracks, filled with dust and 
a few scattered shade trees. Hotel omnibuses line 
up at right angles to the station straight out into the 
open, instead of along the curb, as in some greater 
and more congested cities, and so we passed a dozen 
or more to find a “guide and interpreter,” as the in¬ 
scription in gold on his cap informed us, who spoke 
English fairly well and knew his business sufficiently 
to insure wise use of the three and a half hours 
vouchsafed by the Spanish timetable. 

Thoughts of “Carmen” Revived. 

Naturally, at Seville, first thoughts were of Car¬ 
men and the cigarette factory; after which there 
might be time for the cathedral. Alcazar and minor 
atractions. Hardly had we moved out of the square, 
before “There it is,” greeted us, and sure enough a 
great brown three-story structure, looking like just 


what it was, an obsolete fortification of olden time., 
a little modernized here and there, its moat dry and 
its drawbridge destroyed. There could be no doubt 
about it, for it is the only one in the city, tobacco 
and its manufacture being a government monop¬ 
oly; and if any of the prototypes or successors to 
Carmen exist, none were visible—not a sign of life 
appeared, not a sound of human activity was heard. 
Carmen will remain a memory of Calve rather than 
Seville. 

Next, inevitably, the cathedral, and as it, with 
everything else in the city, closes at one, there was 
no time to lose. Now, the plain, personal truth is 
that one of the American trio was rather “fed up” 
on cathedrals. Within a few weeks. Incarnation at 
Garden City, St. John the Divine on Morningside 
Heights; then St. Paul’s, London, Antwerp, Ghent, 
Bruges, Maline—is not enough as good as a feast? 

Besides, every guide book and tourist has written 
and told of Seville, and why carry coals to New¬ 
castle? Still, simply Seville’s site is unique and in¬ 
teresting. That of the Moorish mosque, seat of 
Moslem rule for centuries, before that faith was 
expelled from Spain, and sections of whose walls, 
with their inscriptions, are preserved in the edifice 
of to-day. Entering, the effect is at once profound, 
awe-inspiring, almost mysterious. There is the same 
cruciform plan common to all cathedrals, but the 
height and stability of the columns as they tower 
away up over 300 feet, to carry the distant lofty 
arches, is something hardly to be realized by the sen¬ 
ses or translated into words. The sense of elevation, 
or aspiration, is heightened by the dim religious 
light, windows are noticeably few and remote, and 
the permanent effect upon the visitor of this silent, 
eloquent, shadowy temple is irresistible. 

Visit Tomb of Columbus. 

Chapels, with their lanterns dimly burning; mortu¬ 
ary tablets, some prone, over the ashes of the. dead, 
others erect, built into the walls! votive offerings, 
relics and memorials innumerable (and for them the 
curious may be referred to guide books) were, of 
course, in abundant evidence. But for the more sec¬ 
ular Americans the tomb and the remains of Colum¬ 
bus were the principal objective. In a central alcove, 
at the crossing of the nave and the transept, stands 
the Columbus catafalque, consecrated here on the 
fourth centenary of his discovery of America, after 
sojourns in San Domingo and Havana, for their 
final resting place, though there are still doubting 
Thomases who say it enshrines all that was mortal 
of Bartholomeo, his brother, not of Christopher. 

The spectator beholds, standing on a marble 
pedestal, four or five feet high, four colossal bronze 
figures, Knights, in mediaeval costume, each holding 
a lance, and bearing on their shoulders a litter; on 
which rests the coffin containing the sacred relics. 
On the bottom of it may be read, if one looks stead¬ 
ily upward long enough, an appropriate inscription. 
On the sides of the pedestal are other legends, his¬ 
torical and explanatory; on the three sides of the 
chapel, for it is without guard or enclosure from 


30 


the front, are paintings illustrating events in the life 
of Columbus; but it must be confessed that the 
effect of the whole, as an adequate tribute to a great, 
historic character and epochal achievement is disap¬ 
pointing, and the flamboyant knights bearing the 
coffin seem triumphal rather than memorial or fune¬ 
real—but perhaps it was meant to be so. 

Court, of Emperor Ferdinand. 

Then, for an admission fee, into the electrically 
lighted CF^pt of the Emperor Ferdinand, whose body 
in its gold-plated coffin is still shown the faithful 
at regular intervals, with diamonds, emeralds and 
other precious stones, a prince’s ransom, and the 
identical sword with which he waged war and drove 
the Moorish invaders from his country. It was all 
very realistic, patriotic and religious, a strange and 
convincing combination. To one of the Americans, 
however, a single living figure was the most impres¬ 
sive of all. This was that of a workman, with chisel 
in hand, no longer than a lead pencil and a mallet 
no bigger than an apple, recutting, by patient, gen¬ 
tle, tapping blows, the marble tracery on one of the 
lintels of the entrance to the crypt of the Duke. 

Plainly the white of the new showed against the 
dust and rust of the old, but to think of one man 
addressing himself to the task of “restoring” this 
vast, awesome cathedral! As well imagine an ant 
rebuilding the pyramid of Cheops. 

And then when we came out into the sunlight, and 
looked up to and against the beautiful blue, we saw 
it all: the Tower of Madison Square Garden, Stan¬ 
ford White’s masterpiece, which we soon shall see 
no more. And it was well worth coming all this way 
to behold the original. Even if a Democratic Con¬ 
vention had not obscured the decline and postponed 
fall of the American counterpart. 

Alcazar Palace of Moorish Kings. 

Luncheon: seven courses for ninety cents, Ameri¬ 
can, and a quart of excellent red ink for much less 
than half what we used to pay in the good old times 
at home! This occupied so much time that but 
little was left for the Alcazar, the palace of the 
Moorish kings. But that does not so much matter. 
The Alcazar of Seville and some of the buildings 
in the Alhambra at Granada are much alike, except 
that the latter crowds and crowns the summit of a 
wondrous hill, a landmark for miles around—and 
who would attempt to do in a day what Irving has 
so incomparably done for all time? In plan, mate¬ 


rial, construction and decoration all these Moorish 
palaces greatly resemble each other, and none is to 
be taken seriously without adequate preparation, 
which in itself is a liberal education. Seville has 
faithfully restored to the last detail the courts, halls, 
audience and banquet rooms of this beautiful edifice, 
stucco rather than the Oriental marble, a perfect ex¬ 
ample of Moorish architecture, and polices and pre¬ 
serves it with scrupulous care, setting many Ameri¬ 
can cities an excellent example against the time, 
which may never come, when they, too, will possess 
antiquities of equal value and interest. 

But though Seville has a past and lives in it, pull¬ 
ing its shades not down but directly and completely 
across its principal streets, at the second or third 
story, from 1 to 3:30 o’clock every afternoon, that 
its siesta may not be disturbed, it must not be infer¬ 
red that it is a sleepy city. It claims 450,000, and is 
growing rapidly, as its outskirts show, every year, 
and is already far advanced in preparations for its 
Spanish-American celebration in 1927 of the ter¬ 
centennial of its founding as an independent Spanish 
municipality. 

America at Court of Nations. 

All the American nations, more than a score of 
them. West Indian, Central and South American, 
will be represented in its great court of nations, now 
under cover and partially completed; its new 600- 
room Hotel Alfonso XIII, is looking for a lessee, 
who might be an American, knowing how to keep 
one and wanting to make money. Steamships twice 
the size of the 8,000-tonners which now come up the 
Guadalquiver, fifty-two miles from the Atlantic, to 
its docks, will land their American tourists directly 
on its piers and at the foot of its principal streets. 
Evidently Spain is taking a leaf out of London’s 
Wembley, and though the delay transfers the Press 
Congress of the world to Paris, next year, it will 
be worth it to show the nations of Europe and all 
mankind that blood is thicker than water, and that 
Spain has a future which may be not less glorious 
than her past. 

Antonio, 94, though from the pace it was an even 
thing whether that was the age of driver or of 
horse, brought us, in his “one-hoss shay,” to the 
station and we resignedly began the five-hour, sixty- 
mile return journey to Cadiz, crediting ourselves 
with a well-spent day. 

H. L. B. 


31 


WITH THE NEWPORT CADETS ON THEIR 

VISIT TO HUELVA 


Warm Reception Given New Yorl^ers at Spanish Port From Which Columbus Sailed More 
Than Four Hundred Years Ago—Inspect Historic Convent, La Rabida—A Sugges¬ 
tion for Brooklyn K. of C. 


(Special Correspondence of The Standard Union.) 

HUELVA, Spain, Aug. 24, 1924.—The Newport 
untangled her anchors at Cadiz by noon, yesterday, 
and dropped one of them in this port, whence 
(Jolumbus sailed on that August morning more than 
four centuries ago, just as the sun was plunging be¬ 
yond the far western horizon into the Atlantic. 

To see the sun set in the Atlantic is as new an 
experience to most Americans as to see it rise from 
anything else. To stand here on the waters of 
Columbus, and grasp something of the wonder and 
mystery that were filling his heart and eyes, could 
not but stir the dullest soul. We had come up on a 
northwest-by-north course, sixty miles or so from 
Cadiz, on the chord of an arc of high, precipitous 
cliffs, backed at intervals by glimpses of higher 
lands, distant in the August haze, which had gradu¬ 
ally fallen away to rounded hills and then to long 
ranges of sand dunes, giving the Rockaways and 
“old Long Island’s seagirt shores” points in their 
wildest and most unformed days. 

When Huelva light, a white, lofty tower over one 
hundred feet high, made out the Newport, the Span¬ 
ish flag was sent up, to be gracefully dipped in wel¬ 
come and acknowledged as we came abeam, and all 
along from that point to our anchorage the fishing 
villages, summer cottages and customs officials 
waved and shouted greetings. For the Newport was 
the first public American vessel, naval or other, to 
enter the harbor, while tramps and freighters pay 
more attention to business than to flags and inter¬ 
national compliments. 

Where Navigation is a Fine Art. 

Navigation of the approaches to the Rio Saltis, 
which with the Tinto and Odiel together make the 
interesting harbor, is a fine art; threading sandbars, 
flats and channels close inshore, suggesting that 
when Columbus had safely got his three caravels to 
the open sea and headed westward the worst of his 
job was over. Towering far into the sky, as we 
went on, was the slender white Columbus monument, 
crowning the bold headland overlooking the estuary. 

Far in the northwest lay the white buildings, and 
later the long rows of white lights of Huelva, the 
modern city of 35,000 on the west side of the Tinto, 
which has superceded Palos, “a wretched little vil¬ 


lage” when Irving visited it a hundred years ago, 
began to come into view. La Rabida, the ancient 
convent, in which the fate of the world was decided, 
lifted its massive square tower of more than six 
centuries above the trees that thickly cover the high 
ridge to the eastward, while the silence and sweet¬ 
ness of the tropical twilight fell swiftly. Capt. Rie- 
senberg mustered the cadets on the spar deck, and 
told them briefly of the place and the man, that they 
might fully understand the opportunities of the mor¬ 
row, and then everybody turned in, gratified that, 
so far, we, like Columbus, had found what we 
came for. 

Early Callers on the Schoolship. 

To-day began early, when you recall that daylight 
saving in Spain means ninety minutes instead of 
sixty, as at home. The first caller, Capt. Martinez, 
a Viscayan and Santiago veteran, in full uniform, 
came to present the admiral's compliments at 8, 
bright and early. Huelva had heard only yesterday, 
by telegraph, that we were due last evening, and 
was on its toes, so to speak. Hardly had the captain 
been piped over the side, when the Alcalde and 
Judge of Palos were greeted and their names en¬ 
rolled in the visitor’s book, and, after the exchange 
of compliments, they were followed in a few min¬ 
utes by the Admiral himself, gorgeous in full uni¬ 
form, cocked hat trimmed with garnet and gold, “a 
few stripes” and brilliant with clasps and medals. 
The next launch brought the Alcalde and Council of 
Huelva, and then the real programme of the day 
began to move. 

No invitation was accepted with more alacrity 
then theirs to accompany them in their launch to 
the pier, a half mile away, and to visit La Rabida 
under their escort. The transfer was made quickly, 
and we were walking along a wide avenue, lined 
with stately palms, on an easy grade, for possibly 
a quarter of a mile or so, when a sharp right angle 
was turned, and there straight ahead, on the sum¬ 
mit, stood the Columbus monument, landmark of 
yesterday, dedicated thirty-two years ago, on the 
four hundredth anniversary of the great voyage and 
greatest discovery. The cylindrical shaft of white 
marble rises from a solid four-square foundation 
at its base, ascended by a long flight of steps to a 


32 




height of 350 feet above sea level, and is surmounted 
by an iron skeletonized globe, on which parallels and 
meridians are visible, and crowned by a Latin cross, 
also of iron. The effect is dignified, artistic, impres¬ 
sive, and much that is symbolic and pertinent may 
be read into its simple purity, notable on a continent 
whose public buildings and outdoor works of art 
suffer the perpetual defilement of soft coal. Half 
way up the descent, in the middle of the avenue, 
stands, gir^ by iron bands, the stump, twenty or 
thirty feet high, of a palm, which was there, they 
say, when Columbus came, and lasted until a hurri¬ 
cane a few years ago. 

View of Ancient Harbor. 

A little further on the path turns off sharply to 
the left and, for pedestrians only, climbs a steep, 
winding grade, three or four hundred feet further 
among flowering shrubs and geraniums as tall as a 
man, and lands the visitor on a clear, wind-swept, 
gravelled plateau, something like that on Lookout 
Hill in Prospect Park, and with gray, venerable La 
Rabida close at hand. Directly in front is a circular, 
thirty feet or so in diameter, flower garden, in which 
the good old sunflowers, marigolds, hollycocks and 
other American favorites bloom luxuriantly and as 
if they were thoroughly at home. Indeed, for those 
who can recall the Thames at New London, it should 
be easy to visualize the ancient harbor as it is to-day. 
Huelva is the city on the west bank; Palos, with¬ 
drawn from view around the bend of a small tribu¬ 
tary, is Groton on the east, while La Rabida looks 
out to the sea as Fort Griswold would if it were a 
good deal higher. 

President Colombo, editor and proprietor of the 
Huelva Spanish-American monthly, “La Rabida,” 
graciously received the visitors and at once made 
them cordially welcome. Senor Colombo is president 
of the Sociedad Columbian Overbook, which has a 
similar organization in Portugal, and devotes itself 
with enthusiasm and efficiency to promoting 
wider and better knowledge, particularly among the 
South American nations and the mother countries, 
of the Columbian voyages, and the early history of 
the nations out of which they came. 

Built in Twelfth Century. 

La Rabida was built in the twelfth century, on the 
site and ruins of a Moorish mosque, to commemo¬ 
rate the virtues and powers of a holy man who had 
checked the plague, which was ravaging the animals 
of the country, and derives its importance in the 
Columbus cult and the world’s history from the 
fact that at its door Columbus, travelling on foot in 
one of those down-and-out journeys, begged food 
for his starving boy, Diego, afterward to succeed 
him as Admiral and Governor-General of New 
Spain; and it was in one of its rooms, shown to us 
to-day, that Father Juan Perez yielded to the ex¬ 
plorer’s last appeal, and, good as his word, promptly 
set off for that memomrable interview with Queen 
Isabella, in which she promised to see the thing 
through and backed it with her jewels, probably one 
of the narrowest and at the same time one of the 


most stupendous turning points in the world’s his¬ 
tory, and endowing it with interest and romance 
which it will never lose. 

La Rabida makes no architectural pretensions, it 
may be of stone or brick, either or both, the stucco 
which covers its walls has yellowed and mellowed 
under the centuries, so that its tones harmonize and 
accord with the brilliant sunlight which beats upon 
it and the dense foliage which surrounds it. It may 
be four square, but probably is not; nor are its 
towers and exterior decorations noticeable. It stands 
solid, as though conscious of age and importance, 
disdaining effects and architectural styles, grave and 
dignified, a witness and guardian of the eternal 
truth, an effect rather than a cause, a monument 
rather than an achievement. 

Library of Columbiana. 

President Colombo escorted the company to the 
room, occupied as official headquarters of the Co¬ 
lumbian Society, where the names were all signed in 
the official register, restored from old material ex¬ 
actly as in Columbus’ day; showed the library of 
Columbiana, maps, archives, charts, documents, 
books and pamphlets, and next the hall where are 
gathered the flags of each of the score of nations, 
West Indian, Central and South America, out of 
which the discovery of Columbus has been carved, 
and then Father Superior took the party in hand. 

The chapel, behind whose altar stand the identical 
images which Columbus worshipped, of the Cruci¬ 
fixion, and whose walls are evidently of Moorish 
origin; the little room, 10 by IS, opening on the gar¬ 
den in which Father Jerez and the impecunious ad¬ 
venturer decided the great question; the beautiful 
pateo or interior court, with palms and flowers; the 
mural paintings were all rapidly shown and hurriedly 
explained when the good father, mindful of the 
physical, not less than the spiritual, led the way to 
the buffet luncheon in a corridor of one of the upper 
floors and looking down upon the interior court. To 
say that repast was welcome, generous and just what 
such an affair should be but states the literal fact, 
and if Americans or Brooklynites want to learn how 
to do this thing well. La Rabida can teach them. 

At a reasonable point in the service, and as it 
proved long before it was finished, the Alcalde of 
Huelva, courtly and speaking English well when he 
cares to, welcomed the visitors in a dignified, com- 
mendably brief address, to which Capt. Riesenberg 
responded in appreciative, well-chosen words of 
gratitude and recognition, coupling with effect a 
toast to the Spanish sailors, Columbus, the Pinzons, 
Balboa and Magellan, discoverers who had changed 
the face and fate of the globe. It may be pertinent 
to remark for the benefit of the Mayor of New 
York that the Mayor of Huelva sported on this 
occasion a new variety of official insignia, new at 
least to his guests. Mayor Davis of Gravesend had 
paid us his official respects in a gorgeous, flaming 
red velvet cloak, trimmed with fur and decorated 
with medals and chains, a most impressive and im¬ 
posing spectacle, but the Spanish Alcalde did the 


33 


honors in a morning business suit, wearing as a belt 
a six-inch wide girdle on the front of which, in the 
exact centre, was emblazoned in blue and gold the 
arms of the city. Wouldn’t New York’s windmills 
look well on Mayor Hylan? What? 

End of a Perfect Day. 

After the Mayor the Admiral and after the 
Admiral the portly brown-cassocked Padre, and see¬ 
ing him gesticulating with his right hand in air, 
protesting amity and friendship for America while 
in the other he held his remaining half glass of 
sherry, one didn’t need to understand Spanish to 
wonder whether he included Volstead and the 
Eighteenth Amendment. Nor a little later, when 
President Colombo, accepting Capt. Riesenberg’s 
invitation to visit the Newport, asked with a tinge 
of sarcasm whether wine could be brought on board. 

As the King of France with forty thousand men 
marched up the hill and then marched down again, 
so did we with forty. The cadets, in two battal- 


lions, visited La Rabida this afternoon, while some 
of the others swam in the Tinto, waters of Colum¬ 
bus, and everybody turned in, voting it the end of a 
perfect day. 

To-morrow at noon we go out on the flood tide 
for Madeira, Teneriffe, Glen Cove and points west. 
Before and lest we forget, why might not the Brook¬ 
lyn Knights of Columbus well get busy and in their 
new $2,500,000 Prospect Park Plaza Clubhouse in¬ 
clude a few genuine stones of La Rabida or a sec¬ 
tion of the tiled floor of the room in which the 
great enterprise was made more than a dream, or, 
possibly and better, reproduce in exterior or inte¬ 
rior, as a wing or annex, La Rabida itself, and 
“come across” with a generous contribution for the 
completion of the Columbus monument? The Stand¬ 
ard Union, I am sure, would gladly undertake any 
commission of this sort with which it might be en¬ 
trusted. 

H. L. B. 


34 


ALONG TRACK OF COLUMBUS WITH THE NEW¬ 
PORT CADETS; NOTES OF MADEIRA VISIT 


followii^ from the pen of the late Herbert L. Bridgman, Regent of the University of 
the State of New York, cirid Business Manager of The Standard Union, is one of the 
two letters found among his effects on the Nerv York Schoolship Newport, aboard 
which Mr. Bridgman died on the return voyage of the annual European cruise of the 
cadets. The letter bore no date, but apparently it was written off Funchal, Madeira, the 
early part of September. 

XL 


Coming down this Palos-Canaries run on the track 
and laden with the lore and legends of Columbus, it 
was only natural and becoming that, though the 
Newport’s voyage is less likely to be memorable and 
historic, she should attempt to follow the great 
navigator’s example; i. e., do it by sail. Another in¬ 
document which he lacked—money—might thereby 
be saved the State of New York, though when the 
experts have carefully balanced the accounts of 
wind, coal and food, it wouldn’t be surprising if 
what was conserved in the bunkers was expended in 
“grub”—that is to say, that all the 94 cadets have 
healthy appetites and to feed and “find” them any 
longer than is necessary is a moderately expensive 
luxury. 

However, from Monday noon until Thursday 
afternoon, when the blue outlines of Madeira came 
into view through the southwestern haze, isn’t so 
very long and a good deal of sail drill en route 
fully justified the expenditure of time to make the 
500 or so miles through which we might have 
steamed all the way. What we say, however, was 
really the reverse of the picture, for Madeira pre¬ 
sents its “stem and rock-bound coast” to comers 
from the North, and to make Funchal it was neces¬ 
sary to jog along all night, past lonely “deserters,” 
so named because they are deserts, that we might 
creep up to our anchorage in the open, deep water 
roadstead, which they call the harbor of Funchal, at 
sunrise. 

Part of Portugal Territory. 

If the nation which has no history is happy, Ma¬ 
deira, with its past wrapped in obscurity and no 
modern authority on it existent, must be one of the 
Ulerrea Isles, and it is worth while to disturb its 
repose only to say that it may be visualized as a 
kidney-shaped piece of Portugal thirty miles east 
and west by about twelve the other way, its con¬ 
vexity toward the south, in a small bight or inden¬ 
tation of which sleeps Funchal, the capital, a town 
of thirty thousand. The island is so obviously vol¬ 
canic, great jagged cloud-wreathed cones piercing 
the sky, that one is reminded instantly of Hawaii, 
and the notion that Atlantis ever sank as deep any¬ 


where in this neighborhood seems to lack any sem¬ 
blance of probability. 

Considering that these bare brown peaks in the 
interior are 4,500 or more feet high, far above the 
line of vegetation, and that all the rain, which is 
almost continually falling in the wet season, has 
only five or six miles to find its level in the sea, the 
deep gullies which scar and score their flanks and 
the rocky boulder-strewn water courses, which are 
everywhere visible, several cutting straight through 
the city, bridged, but wide open to the sky, are 
easily explained. Trails practicable only on foot or 
for pack animals, traverse the island, looping over 
its peaks and threading its valleys and gorges, but 
apart from scattered fishing villages, tucked in 
around the coast, where nature permits difficult foot¬ 
hold, and sea, not land, yields substance. 

A Home-Loving People. 

Funchal is Madeira, and contains by far the greater 
part of its plodding, home-loving and apparently 
contented people. Dwellers they are in a land flow¬ 
ing with milk, a little honey, wine and the grapes, 
flowers and almost every variety of tropical and 
temperate zone fruit, gaining by the change in eleva¬ 
tion above the sea climatic effects which other re¬ 
gions can effect only by change of latitude. 

A trim, beautiful, white yacht lay asleep on the 
unruffled harbor as in the gray dawn we crept slowly 
to our anchorage. We were now neighbors, but not 
quite near enough, and when, at colors, the Italian 
ensign and the Royal Italian Yacht Club burgee 
were broken out, there was no longer doubt, and we 
counted it distinct and exceptionally good fortune 
that we should be within easy hail, almost alongside, 
the Marconi Elettra. As all the world knows, the 
great electrician, the value of whose work is incal¬ 
culable, is a thorough cosmopolitan, almost as well 
known in New York as in London, in America as 
in Italy, and that cordial relations between the two 
ships should be established was inevitable. 

Senator Marconi came first on board the Newport 
late in the afternoon, and our bugle sounded “colors” 
and the flag fluttered to the deck. “And ours came 
down at the same moment,” with an expression of 


35 




satisfaction, inspired much more than a mere state¬ 
ment of a casual coincidence. Those who spoke with 
the distinguished visitor saw a slender, rather tall, 
courtly gentleman, who, so far as exterior appear¬ 
ance and bearing were concerned, might have been 
a lawyer, teacher, banker, or a combination of all. 
Modest, sincere and unaffected, speaking English 
perfectly, of quiet, almost reserved bearing, and 
speaking in most casual references only of himself 
and his great work. The call was not protracted to 
small talk and personal gossip—they don’t do things 
that way in foreign circles—^but it was long enough 
for offer and acceptance of an invitation to dine on 
board the Elettra on the following evening. 

On Board Marconi’s Yacht. 

The Marconi yacht proved as beautiful within as 
graceful without, a saloon aft, decorated and fur¬ 
nished in perfect taste and for comfort rather than 
show, with piano and portraits of King Humbert 
and members of the Royal family; midships a spa¬ 
cious dining room, occupying the entire width of the 
ship, and forward the most complete and costly 
electrical laboratory in the world, in which experi¬ 
mental and research work is constantly carried on. 

“Don’t get too near,” remarked Lieut. Matthieu, 
the electrical assistant. “This is a high voltage.” 

And turning and reading on a dial, “18,000 volts,” 
no second warning was necessary. 

On a table stood a machine apparently duplicate 
of that in the Manchester “Guardian’s” London 
office, an American invention too, receiving press 
news reports at the rate of 100 words per minute, 
all in typewritten, perfectly legible form, a sample 
page of which, autographed by Signor Marconi as 
evidence of good faith, not necessarily for publica¬ 
tion, will soon be placed framed on the walls of the 
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. 

Next day the Newport’s cadets went almost en 
masse in response to Mr. Marconi’s generous invita¬ 
tion to the laboratory of the Elettra, and listened 
to a personal explanation and demonstration by the 
master of the work, which he has in hand, the in¬ 
vestigation of the possibilities of short wave lengths 
of the electric current in wireless communication. 
The field and subject are far too technical for this 
time and place, but it is enough for the purpose to 
say that the experiments have in sight, with every 
prospect of early and complete success, vastly 
greater efficiency and at greatly reduced cost. 

Sends Signals 12,000 Miles. 

“We are sending messages to London all the time 
and receiving answers in ten minutes,” said Marconi, 
and to an exclamation of surprise, that this could 
be done across an interval of 1,300 miles, continued: 
“We are after exchanging signals with Australia, 
12,000 miles distant.” 

The Marconi investigations, in addition to short 
wave lengths, are taking up the laws of the electrical 
bearers so that they may be definitely known and 
understood and their limits be plotted exactly. As 


it is now, he explained, points of equal distance from 
the sending station, if between certain radii, give 
perfect response, while others of far less distance 
give none, indicating that there must be some defi¬ 
nite law, of which we know nothing certainly, by 
which the path, or so to speak, the effective width 
of the electrical waves which spread out like the 
rays of a fan, may be ascertained and definitely 
fixed. 

To say that the Newport boys were charmed and 
delighted with what they saw and heard in the 
Elettra laboratory is to put it mildly. It was the 
opportunity of a lifetime and following so soon the 
Columbus Day at Palos, seemed to realize again that 
extremes meet, and to put the misty past and the 
possible future in close touch or in sharp contrast 
as you look at it. Marconi and his captain, the 
Elettra’s navigator, and Lieut. Matthieu, his expert 
associate, were guests the next evening on the New¬ 
port and impressions of former meetings were em¬ 
phasized of a man intensely in earnest, practical and 
at the same time enthusiastic, and being led by 
nature and its mysteries with equal zest and always 
looking and going forward to greater things. 

Marconi to Visit Brooklyn. 

The shadow of weariness, the trace of fatigue, 
which occasionally passed, told how earnest and at 
the same time exhausting is the work to which the 
master of Elettra devotes pretty much all of his 
time day and night, and it was with more than or¬ 
dinary satisfaction that his message of good-bye and 
good will, for he left Funchal at dawn for Cadiz the 
next morning, were received. Signor Marconi now 
expects to be in New York some time during No¬ 
vember, and among the “dates” already made for 
his visit is one to inspect the Brooklyn Edison Com¬ 
pany’s big new Hudson avenue power house and 
turbo-generators. 

Far up on the lofty ridge which dominates Fun¬ 
chal from the northeast gleam over the masses of 
green foliage the two white Moorish domes of 
Santa Maria de la Monte, and about them centres 
dramatic historic interest. In a chapel of the an¬ 
cient church looking down on harbor and town, for 
more than two and a half centuries, repose the re¬ 
mains of the royal exile, the Archduke Charles of 
Austria, last for a while, at least, of the Hapsburgs. 
They say that the resting place is but temporary, a 
sojourn in death as in life, from loyal sons and 
daughters of Portugal, for the Archduchess Princess 
Zita is of Portuguese descent, but who knows? 

Santa Maria may be reached by the rack and 
pinion railway which runs two or three slow high- 
priced trains a day from a little station, on a corner 
of the miniature park at the foot of its slope, to 
the Mont Palace Hotel on the summit, whither 
Admiral Peary led a happy party one Sunday years 
ago, by automobile or on foot. 

Hairpin Curves Give Thrill. 

The second, if you have nerve, of which it takes 
a good deal, and cash, of which not so much, is 


36 


preferable. To begin with, the machine is a mon¬ 
ster. All Funchal cars are mostly of foreign make 
and real hill climbers. Hairpin curves make up most 
of the distance, and as you swing around one on 
the outer edge, looking down, with no wall railing 
or embankment to intercept the view of the specta¬ 
tor, if he happened to go over on the Newport and 
Elettra, growing finer and beautifully less in the 
harbor far below coast down the grades to the 
inner circles which cross the gorges, nearer their 
heads and shoot at forty or fifty miles an hour 
along the nearly level grades which connect these 
turning points, you hold your breath and wonder 
whether this slow town ever heard of a speed 
limit or a “traffic cop?” 

The White Mountain stage driver’s answer to 
“Where would we go, should the harness break?”— 
“That madam, depends entirely on the sort of life 
you have led”—comes unbidden to mind. 

Santa Maria is at the top of a flight of stone steps, 
wider and more than twice as high as those of the 
Brooklyn Borough Hall, so that when the machine 
stops at its foot, the visitor still has a rather breath¬ 
less climb of his own. Crippled, wrinkled beggars, 
stretch their palms and the inevitable custodian does 
not wait to be asked to open the door and bid you 
enter. The royal coffin, white and gold, lies at the 
head of a small chapel on the left of the centre 
aisle and without grill work or other substantial pro¬ 
tection is approached by a flight of two or three 
steps on which the ever faithful are almost con¬ 
stantly kneeling and praying. Flags and mourning 
emblems are rather conspicuous by their absence. 

Sympathy and Kindly Feeling Survive. 

The colors of the flag of the once dual empire 
drape the wall near the head of the coffin, and many 
broad ribbons and streamers, inscribed with mes¬ 
sages of affection and loyalty, are displayed in 
rather simple, artistic grouping on the walls. Every 
Saturday a Madeiran association of friends and 
mourners deck the chapel with fresh flowers and on 
Sundays the common people, worshipping at Santa 
Maria, in ways give evidence that the sympathy and 
kindly feeling which gave the Archduke refuge in 
life survives, and will long follow the widowed Zita 
and eight orphans, now residing in retirement in 
Italy. If one were minded to point a moral and 
adorn a tale, a better place could hardly be found 
in all time or in all the world than before this white, 
silent casket, with its single taper constantly burn¬ 
ing. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” isn’t it as true 
now as ever? 

Azoreans, and there are a number in Madeira, are 
interested and gratified at the presence in Funchal 
of Lieut. Commander John H. Boesch, Naval Re¬ 
serve, of Bayonne, N. J., since it reminds them of 
an incident in the World War, which they have not 
forgotten, nor ever will forget, though it somehow 
was never fully understood or appreciated at home. 
Porta Delgada, however, principal port of Port- 
tuguese group, has recognized the exploit by public 


celebrations, with honors and ceremonies and by 
naming a street and public square in honor of the 
American commander, who saved it from surrender, 
if not from destruction as well. Very soon after 
the American entrance into the war, a German sub¬ 
marine, which had been hanging around “the West¬ 
ern Islands” for some time, came up to Porta Del¬ 
gada and demanded the surrender of the city. Re¬ 
fusal was followed by short bombardment, merely 
as intimation of what might be expected, though it 
was long enough to kill a woman and do consider¬ 
able damage to property. 

Honors for Commander Boesch. 

Fortunately for the helpless town, just at this 
juncture the American naval collier Orio, with Com¬ 
mander Boesch in command, came into the scene 
and, without waiting for discussion or formalities, 
a few well-directed shots from her guns sent the 
German out and under the sea, from which she 
never returned to trouble Porta Delgada, thence¬ 
forward a naval base for the South Atlantic and 
most valuable port of supply and support for allied 
fleets operating in European waters. 

A well-defined rumor persists aboard the New¬ 
port that the Portuguese Government awarded its 
highly distinguished order of the Tower and the 
Sword to the captain of the American collier for 
his plucky and characteristic defense of its Atlantic 
outpost, but that somehow by diplomatic circum- 
location and naval complications in time of war it 
never actually got across. It would seem timely and 
becoming for some of Commander Boesch’s many 
service friends to remind both governments that 
“it’s never too late to mend,” and obtain proper 
acknowledgment for an act which had far more 
important consequences in the successful outcome 
of the war and curbing the submarine base than 
merely protecting an undefended town from capture 
and a strategic post from destruction. 

Sleepy, quaint old Funchal might well detain the 
Newport and her cadets a good while longer with 
satisfaction, for the boys are easy marks for the 
local curiosity shops and tourist trader. One leaves 
this fair and rugged isle freighted with pleasant 
memories, of which one of the most lasting will be 
of a luncheon at “Pal Heiro,” the Blandy summer 
home on a lofty headland, though there is much 
higher ground beyond, commanding a far ranging 
view, east and south, to the open ocean, in Arcadia, 
half an hour from town, up another series of those 
circling, hairpin, hair-raising curves, which make the 
trip either way a continuous performance of thrill. 

Wonderful Bower of Beauty. 

Here in a wonderful bower of beauty, the man¬ 
sion circled by groves of evergreen, in which are a 
great deodor of Kipling scenes, the pines and bal¬ 
sams of the north and the luxuriant green of the 
tropics, while in the gardens bloom almost every 
variety of flowers of both zones. Tennis court and 
swimming pools are on the grounds. An English 


37 


banker and business man of long lineage and hon¬ 
orable record, who with a gracious American wife, 
daughter of the late Admiral Reeder possesses an 
ideal home of undefined charm and natural beauty. 
Four times Miss Reeder accompanied her father, 
then commanding the old St. Mary’s, predecessor of 
the Newport, on her annual cruise to Madeira, but 
that is another story. 


We are off in an hour for Santa Cruz de Tene¬ 
rife, in the Canaries, the gallows frame is hung with 
cages in which are from one to seven birds apiece 
and midships looks like another “bird cage walk,” 
once so famous in London. What destination could 
be more obviously appropriate? 

H. L. B. 


38 


VIEWING TENERIFFE’S PEAK WITH THE NEW 
PORT CADETS; SCENE OF NELSON’S DEFEAT 


^/le following, from the pen of the late Herbert L. Bridgman, Regent of the University of the 
State of New Yorli, and business manager of the Standard Union, is the last of the two 
letters found among his effects on the Schoolship Newport, aboard which Mr. Bridgman died 
on the return voyage of the annual European cruise of the Cadets. 


XII. 


“The Captain’s compliments, Sir, and we have now 
a fine view of the Peak,” was all that was needed to 
turn out a sleepy Newporter in record time. From 
the deck, it stood up straight, shapely and clearly 
outlined against the brilliant blue thirty-five air line 
miles away, a pyramid in the sky, one of the most 
perfect exhibitions of its kind. 

Far as every experience shows, and every traveler 
knows, mountain peaks are capricious. Apparently 
of the eternal hills, and forever fixed in place, clouds 
and winds make playthings of them, and many a 
sea wayfarer on these Atlantic subtropical waters, 
has yet to catch his first glimpse of stately, domin¬ 
ant Teneriffe, the White Mountain which gives its 
name to the entire island. Compared with Everest, 
our own McKinley or Whitney, Teneriffe’s 12,180 
feet is not so very wonderful or anything of which 
to be boastful. It is its position and environment 
which make it altogether unique and impressive. It 
would be easy to imagine Washington or Marcy 
twice as high, but to make the comparison fair you 
must move them to the sea, elevate them directly 
from the level, and from the summit permit no land 
in any direction to be seen. From the top of the 
peak, completely around the circle, except the small 
and comparatively insignificant Canaries, some un- 
inhabitated, no land can be seen, and only “ocean’s 
gray and melancholy waste” on all sides bounds the 
horizon. 

Mountain Still Volcanic. 

In the bright light of that early morning the for¬ 
tunate vision, proportions, silence, distance, grandeur, 
all commingled in one harmonious effect which will 
never be forgotten. Words and colors would each 
fail in description, for the cloudless, brilliant trans¬ 
parency of the sunlight, and the effect of com¬ 
parison far beyond and at the same time far above 
the interesting ranges, could only be achieved by the 
actual observer. Like a reddish brown pyramid, 
color fading almost to white at the exact peak, the 
clearly white spot on the eastern flank, rock on 
which the sun blazed and not snow, as might have 
been supposed, delicate play of lights and shadows 
as position of ship and sun changed, suggestion that 
the mass of which only the summit was visible, and 


which was later verified, must be a mighty bulk, then 
impressions, and others like them, were transferred 
from the retina to memory as the Newport crept to 
her anchorage. Teneriffe, volcanic in origin, has not 
yet gone out of business. Fifteen years ago lava 
flowed out of an eruption three-fourths of the way 
up its eastern flank, and looking to its remote 
majesty, piercing the sky, it is easy to believe that 
the ancient Mauretanians, seventy-five miles distant 
on the shores of Africa, saw its fires lighting their 
western skies. 

Santa Cruz, capital, much to the displeasure and 
rivalry of Las Palmos on Grand Canary of the 
Province of the Canaries, might be readily dismissed 
as an “also ran.” In other words, description of 
any one of these Azorean, Madeiran or Canarian 
towns, will serve for all the others. 

False Note to Old Song. 

“ ’Twas off the blue Canary isles,” runs the old 
college song, but the Canaries and the rest of them 
are not blue. Water about them is deepest and sky 
above most brilliant blue, but the islands themselves 
are a dirty, dusty, reddish brown or volcanic basalt, 
and thinly veiled with verdure which may become 
grass or other crop, or the small timber and brush 
which fight for life on the arid higher slopes. A 
Hudson River commuter might visualize almost any 
of these islands political or commercial capitals by 
imagining one of his familiar towns, Tarrytown, 
Nyack, Newburg, set at the sea level in the centre 
of a great semi-circular or, it might be, elliptical 
bowl or stadium, ten or fifteen miles in diameter, 
whose outer rim is raised up to two thousand feet 
or so against the sky, with higher peaks, usually fog- 
covered, fringing the upper outlook, the front gashed 
at right angles by three or four steep, rocky ravines, 
torrents in the rainy storms, nearly dry at others, 
down which waters course swiftly and wastefully to 
the sea, and sprinkled liberally all over the landscape, 
the cream stucco, red tiled residences, some half 
concealed by foliage, others boldly dominating and 
asserting themselves almost obtrusively on the slope. 

Seen from below, not much but walls and terraces 
are visible, and the rumored productivity of the is- 


39 




lands sounds like a fable. From any considerable 
elevation, however, the view reverses the conclusion, 
and terraced plots, checkerboarded into the hillsides 
and steep slopes on which foothold seems almost 
impossible, reveal vineyards, cornfields, banana 
plantations, potato and tomato fields, all in luxuriant 
and profitable growth, the certainty of crops being 
assured by the reservoirs, wisely located by com¬ 
petent engineers and carefully handled so that the 
irrigation is practically never failing. 

Scene of Nelson’s Only Defeat. 

But, though Santa Cruz is like its neighbors in 
many things, it has others particularly its own and 
to which it points with unfailing pride. Whether 
Columbus took, as his last view of the old world 
and the kingdom of Spain, the Peak of Teneriffe de¬ 
pends on the condition of the weather on that me¬ 
morable 9th day of September. He might have, 
had conditions been favorable, but it is certain that 
three hundred years later the great Nelson, Eng¬ 
land’s pride and boast, met his only defeat and lost 
his right arm in these very waters in which the 
Newport lies so peacefully. You may read all about 
it in the histories. Naturally, the incident is not 
played up with so much enthusiasm as the Nile and 
Trafalgar, which came later. Santa Cruz, however, 
never forgets it nor will permit citizens and visitors 
to ignore it. 

“Place du Sinciems Juilled,” otherwise the place 
of the ducks which play in the pool of its fountain 
in its cool and shaded centre, marks not so much the 
hospitable home of the American Consul facing it, 
as the repulse of Nelson and the British naval as¬ 
sault on that day, and if you visit the museum they 
will show you, with no reluctance or visible sign of 
regret, “the tiger,” the long Tom carronade, which 
fired the shot that put him out of business and saved 
the day for the Spaniards. Spanish and British 
colors drape the case containing the venerated gun, 
but if you want to see those captured from the 
repelled invaders you are pointed to ten dimly 
lighted caves for up near the cornice of a chapel 
in the Cathedral of La Concepcion, placed safely out 
of reach of a second recapture by a party of daring 
British midshipmen, whom diplomacy afterward 
compelled to surrender the prizes and restore the 
trophies to the rightful owners. 

Dinner at La Laguna. 

“Suppose we dine at La Laguna,” said our host 
and it only required the lapse of a few hours and an 
American automobile to transform the suggestion 
into the fact. La Laguna, five miles away and almost 
a mile above Saratoga, Long Island, Jersey or the 
Sound Shore, temporary or permanent residence as 
convenience or circumstance may dictate. The city, 
as its name indicates, occupies, the geologists say, 
the site of ancient waters, and surveys for miles 
around in all directions a generally rolling, intensely 
cultivated country, reminding of Iowa or Nebraska 
prairies, while far to the north. Point Amagu, first 


to be sighted by the mariner, rears its lofty head, 
and on the south the great White Mountain stands 
eternal sentinel. The climb from sea to summit is 
like that of Madeira, only that the gradients are 
less, the tangents longer, and the roadway often 
blinded by dust. On the way you’ll meet the 
Languria flower girls coming down with floral 
freight borne in trays on their shapely erect heads, 
to sleep on the pavements of Santa Cruz, until soon 
after sunrise the market opens and business begins. 
And the other morning as we came along—“Notice 
that woman,” said he, pointing to one footing it 
along the dusty road, carrying on her head, erect, 
untouched and perfectly balanced, a flat table top, 
three feet or so by four, on which stood several 
small, badly battered milk cans. “That’s one of the 
milk girls. She has probably walked ten miles or 
more this morning, and after serving her customers 
or selling out, will go home on the trolley.” 

Refuse to Pay Taxes on Water. 

“What’s the price of milk here unsealed and un¬ 
certified?” was asked. 

“About thirteen cents a quart,” after a pause and 
mental figuring to change Spanish measures and 
money to American. 

“And is it good milk?” 

“No,” was the answer, with much less delay. 
“Taxes are paid just outside the city limits on all 
milk coming into town, and the pump is just over 
the line in the other direction. Why should one pay 
tax on water?” 

You’ll also pass a vine-covered two-story store¬ 
house, in which you’ll be told Capt. James Cook slept 
before he went on that circumnavigation from which 
he never returned, because he got what was coming 
to him in Hawaii, and if you’d been earlier in the 
day you’d have seen plenty of good Canarian lads 
playing soccer football which, bull fighting having 
been suspended since the burning of the stadium last 
winter, has caught on like wildfire and is still going 
strong. Swiftly threading Laguna’s straight, nar¬ 
row, generally level streets, we pull up before a 
modest English Hotel” on one side of its twenty- 
four-inch square sign at right angles to the street, 
and “Hotel Inglese” on the other, enter, arrange for 
dinner, which will be at the regular 9 P. M., and go 
for a stroll through the ancient city, in which prob¬ 
ably the three of us were the only Americans and 
a majority of the English speaking population. In 
the first residential street into which we turned, 
“Notice the window and balcony,” said our guide 
and host, and his explanation of the Romeo and 
Juliet architecture was hardly necessary. Not two 
minutes later as we strolled along, “And there’s 
one of them now,” continued he, and as coming 
up with a “hope I don’t intrude” assumed indiffer¬ 
ence, we had a good chance to study at close range 
the real thing. A comely, slender, straw-hatted and 
rather no-account young chap as to outward looks 
and bearing, leaning awkwardly on a cane and gazing 
absently-minded from the middle of the street to a 


40 


second story above the window over the way, where 
half withdrawn sat a woman whose features were 
indistinguishable in the twilight, was certainly a pic¬ 
ture rather commonplace than dramatic or romantic, 
and a situation apparently accepted as such by the 
persons most concerned. As a show, there was ab¬ 
solutely nothing doing, and though we were told 
that these courtships run on from ten to fifteen 
years before the would-be son-in-law is permitted to 
enter the house and claim his bride, lovelorn swains 
sometimes proving their devotion by exposure to 
all kinds of weather, there seems no good reason 
why the custom should not gradually die out in the 
colony as it has already in the mother country. 
After definite relations have been established and 
the young man is accepted as a “steady,” the couple 
may meet at balls and public assemblies, but each 
must dance only with the other. 

Laguna has, of course, its cathedral on whose 
bells, lofty and melodious, its clock strikes the hour; 
religious, as once secular capital of Teneriffe, it 
still retains the bishop’s seat and palace of much 
architectural beauty, but its chief attraction to the 
Newporters, officers and cadets, was the University 
of San Fernando, to which we were welcomed by 
the courtly civil governor of the province, the 
faultlessly dressed Mayor and the eager, enthus¬ 
iastic dean of its faculty. 

An old monastery reconditioned and thoroughly 
reconstructed, set in grounds riotous with flowers, 
plants and shrubs which bloom the whole twelve 
months around, and enclosing a pateo or court in 
which the display is, if anything, even more lavish, 
no wonder that nearly a thousand students are al¬ 
ready enrolled and the promise of the future is 
bright. First to be entered on the ground floor, 
level with the court, was a general public audience 
room for graduation and similar exercises. The 
smallness of the hall, it would not seat over two 
or three hundred, and the richness of its appoint¬ 
ments and decorations, in which red and gold were 
the dominant notes, and the merit and variety of 
the paintings and works of art adorning its walls, 
were the features which most impressed the visitors. 
One entire wall was occupied by a spirited fresco, 
depicting the repulse of the British at Santa Cruz 
in 1797. Nelson wounded, in full uniform, being the 
central and most conspicuous figure in the center 
of a scene of which the distance and background 
are the deck, in all the smoke and horror of battle. 

Library of 35,000 Volumes. 

A fine likeness of the Emperor Ferdinand, grand¬ 
father of Bang Alfonso XIII., founder and patron 
of the university, is among the notable portraits. 
Most surprising of all, however, was the library of 
35,000 volumes, no catalogue except in manuscript, 
mainly, of course, in Spanish, though with occasion¬ 
ally rare and valuable works in English, as for ex¬ 
ample, William Pinkerton’s twenty-four volume 
edition of “Travels and Exploration of the World,” 


and when they invite you to examine a sixteenth 
century atlas, and you notice that the preface is signed 
Mercator, you wish you could stay longer, and 
leave with very sensibly increased respect for this 
Canary University, so remote from those which we 
are accustomed to consider as about all that amount 
to much. Class rooms, equipment, mechanical and 
scientific, the museum and gymnasium, were all ex¬ 
hibited and explained. Officers and cadets inscribed 
their names in the visitors’ book in the office of the 
president, and the visitors were sent on their way 
with fragrant flowers and hearty godspeeds. 

For we were bound to Tacoronte, which you will 
probably not find on any map, seven miles to the 
westward, on the brow of the slope which descends 
rapidly to the sea and looks far out to the west¬ 
ward. As a starting point for the two-hour, ten- 
mile hike of the day under a magnificence of frag¬ 
rant eucalyptus, that tropical evergreen which gath¬ 
ers moisture from the air and sprinkles the roads 
with it, the cars sped rapidly along through a rich 
farming country, terraced hills and thatched cot¬ 
tages, the great Peak, revealing its perfect propor¬ 
tions with every mile, sloping downward like a great 
pyramid, until turning a sharp right angle and pitch¬ 
ing down a steep grade we parked the cars under 
leafy sycamores in front of the little old church of 
Tacoronte. 

Watch Soldiers Embark. 

Appointing the old man of the sea commander-in¬ 
chief of the cars, Capt. Riesenberg and the cadets re¬ 
turned after more than two hours to find him en¬ 
sconced with a good book in a good seat in the 
leading car, and that, like Carabimen, they had 
nothing on him. Led by a native lad, part of the 
return had been over a rocky and difficult trail, but 
they had seen far below and distant Orotora, the 
tourist resort, and its beautiful valley, the native 
lavendaria, or native laundry, with the native women 
washing clothes and spreading them on the rocks to 
dry, had inspected another church and were ready 
for the generous lunch which in great hampers had 
been brought along from the ship. 

That “touch of nature which makes the whole 
world kin,” a vivid reminder of several years at 
home, has been going on all morning, and almost 
under our eyes. All last week soldiers were plenty 
in Santa Cruz, and this morning, from a fine, trim 
steamship just opposite the harbor, flew the broad 
white pennant inscribed “Rey Jaime II,” while be¬ 
yond on the mole wall, though kept back by guards 
some distance astern of the ship, could be seen the 
people massed by thousands, mostly, as the glasses 
revealed, women and children. Every point of van¬ 
tage was occupied, and on the forestay of a tramp 
lying to short distance astern, but commanding a 
view of the decks of the Jaime, a bunch of young¬ 
sters had “shinnied” up and stuck on like beads on a 
string. Before long, the soldiers began to come 
aboard, and as they were coming across to the port 


41 


side, filed in single column past the deckhouse, go¬ 
ing forward. 

Procession of Hospital Corps. 

“What are those long poles which they carry in 
their hands?” said a Newport officer, as he took his 
binoculars from his eyes. “They can’t be lances.” 

“That must be the hospital corps and those are 
the supports for the stretchers for the killed and 
wounded,” said the other, speaking the truth. And 
a gruesome sight it was as that long, patient file 
drew its slow length along. And when an hour 
later, as the great throng of women and children, 
many crying and sobbing, here and there a gayer 
group, came thronging up the great Place of the 


Constitution at the parting from this battalion of 
striplings, who wouldn’t last a minute before our 
American doughboys, going over to fight Moroccan 
rebels, and many of whom will never return, and 
they know it, one doesn’t wonder that Spain is be¬ 
ginning to count whether the game is worth the 
candle and that the fate of the ministry and future 
of the nation may depend on that of the lads whose 
last farewells were said this morning. 

Again extremes meet. Our anchor is hove short, 
the pilot is on the bridge, and while Santa Cruz 
looks sadly eastward the Newport turns her bow 
gladly westward and homeward. 

H. L. B. 


42 


(The Brooklyn Standard Union—Oct. 9, 1924 


CAPT. RIESENBERG WRITES REMINISCENCES OF 
CRUISE WITH HERBERT L. BRIDGMAN 


Ijhz following notes on the recent cruise of the New York, schoolship in European Toaters, on which the 
cadets Were accompanied bp T>r. Herbert L. ^ridgman. Regent of the Universitp of Neiu York 
business manager of Uhe Standard Union, were written by Capt. Felix Riesenberg, commander of 
the Newport. The sketch is a personal appreciation of twelve iveeks of companionship at sea and in 
foreign ports with the educator, explorer and Brooklyn business man, who died suddenly on shipboard 
Sept. 24 as the Newport was nearing Bermuda on the voyage homeward. — Editor Brooklyn 
Standard Union. 


By CAPT. FELIX RIESENBERG 

Commaader N. Y. State Scholarship 
Newport 

“Whenever I have been away for a long period 
expected changes and events have been overshadow¬ 
ed by unexpected happenings.” 

We were sitting on the quarterdeck of the New¬ 
port ; a full moon beamed on us and the steady 
trade wind filled our sails. Over the side sounded 
the ripple of running water curving away from the 
cleaving bow. Boys were at the wheel, moving a 
spoke now and then to hold the vessel true, and the 
watch forward were clustered about the fiddley. It 
was delightfully mild and fresh, the night air seemed 
to caress the ship, to smooth away doubt. Dr. Bridg¬ 
man usually retired at nine, but the scene held us. 
His remark, called forth by some casual conjecture 
as to happenings back home, brought with it a train 
of reminiscence, long months spent in Greenland, 
and of long separations from his beloved Brooklyn 
while in Africa and other places. 

He often spoke of his grandson at Amherst, spoke 
of him with the restraint of one who would keep 
in a great love and yet felt the urge to speak, to 
give expression to the thought always with him, for 
the ship, with its complement of boys, was a con¬ 
stant reminder of the lad back home. “He was wild, 
that boy. But I understood him,” he said. 

Many of these perfect nights blended and blurred 
in the long succession of days on our passage west¬ 
ward. He seemed in a quiet, happy mood of retro¬ 
spection. Sometimes he would sit for hours looking 
over the sea, his mind ranging beyond understand¬ 
ing. Again and again he spoke of the quiet life of 
his home, of his restful Sundays reading with Mrs. 
Bridgman, and of their faithful housekeeper, with 
them for years, and so careful in every detail of the 
home. 


“Now, don’t get me talking on this subject,” he 
would say, when some different angle of his many 
points of contact with affairs would come up in our 
conversation. 

His Love for Brooklyn. 

“Brooklyn is an American city,” he once remark¬ 
ed. “And Americans live there as well as work 
there.” 

In Madeira he was delighted to find the vice- 
consul, Mr. Kemp, had been a Brooklynite. 

“When somewhat younger I was advised by phy¬ 
sicians that my health would suffer if I remained in 
Brooklyn,” Dr. Bridgman said, “in fact, they gave 
me only a short time to live unless I went to the 
higher level of Montclair. I moved to New Jersey 
and after two weeks concluded I would rather die 
in Brooklyn than live in Montclair, so I returned.” 

He told this with dry humor. He spoke of events 
of great moment with the certain knowledge of one 
who had participated fully in the many national and 
international crises of our time, but always with a 
detachment that was refreshing. His grasp of vital 
problems confronting the world to-day was aston¬ 
ishing. 

In London the great conference of premiers was 
in progress when we called on Baron Moncheur, the 
Belgian Ambassador. Dr. Bridgman, in a few 
minutes of conversation, ranged back to past expe¬ 
riences, for they had not met for years, and then, 
like a flash, in answer to Dr. Bridgman’s question, 
heard words of hope, of settlement. We were in¬ 
vited to luncheon at the St. James Club. An agree¬ 
ment was about to be reached along the avenue made 
possible by the Dawes commission. 

Not a word was said about secrecy. As we went 
back to Gravesend Dr. Bridgman shook his head. 

“I’d like to cable that settlement to our people in 
Brooklyn,” he said. 

His sense of news was always keen. His stern in¬ 
tegrity carried him into the innermost confidence of 


43 




his friends. At that time the whole situation in the 
public eyes was clouded in gloom. 

While in London, I purchased a two-volume set 
of “Horne’s History of Napoleon,” and, during a 
few days of heavy Biscay weather, while laid up, I 
read with avidity to take my mind from the prob¬ 
lems of the ship. Dr. Bridgman, in the meantime, 
being a seasoned sailor, watched the storm from the 
deck. The next opportunity for quiet conversation 
enabled me to turn the drift of talk toward Bona¬ 
parte. I suddenly realized that, out of the vast store 
of his learning, he was brilliantly conversant with 
the complicated career of Napoleon. 

“He will be remembered as a statesman when he 
is forgotten as a soldier,” Dr. Bridgman remarked 
tersely. He looked at me keenly as our talk drew 
to a close. I then confessed my sudden access of 
half-digested history, via the excellent volumes of 
Horne. 

“Read Bourrienne when you get a chance,” he re¬ 
marked dryly, a twinkle in his eye. 

Two Old Hats, Each With a History. 

One of Dr. Bridgman’s duties, and a commission 
he performed with religious solemnity, was the 
presentation of letters from the Brooklyn Cham¬ 
ber of Commerce to similar commercial bodies in 
the ports of our cruise. He had the great gift of 
giving his actions a significance and importance 
only possible to one who carries the old-fashioned 
art of courtesy to its highest point. And in all of 
his travels, in London and Antwerp, especially, he 
would wear his trusty straw hat, rain or shine. 
Otherwise he was punctilious in his dress. In his 
frock coat, with his Belgian order on his breast, he 
took station with the officers when we received our 
official visitors in Antwerp. 

At Cadiz, he remarked, “My old straw hat is com¬ 
ing back into style.” 

Dr Bridgman had another hat, a worthy compan¬ 
ion to the straw. This was a battered gray felt with 
limp brim and used when off soundings at sea. The 
hat once had a remarkably narrow escape, some¬ 
where in the Pacific. 

“I was on deck one windy night, coming home 
from Honolulu, when this hat was blown from my 
head,” he related. “Next day I bought a cap from 
the barber for two fifty and then, when I got on the 
boat deck again I saw my friendly old hat lodged 
in a ventilator.” 

“Well?” I remarked, for I scented a story. 

“The barber wouldn’t give me more than a dollar 
for that cap when I brought it back.” 

Those who knew the doctor will appreciate his 
way of telling it. He never hesitated to tell a joke 
on himself. 

Of Peary, Bartlett, Borup, Marvin and other 
Arctic friends, he had an endless story of refreshing 
reminiscence. I more than once urged him to set 
down his story of the background upon which Peary 
built up his series of great Arctic journeys. 

“I shall have to do it, I must,” he said. 

But then he had planned work enough for another 


lifetime. His name, standing forever on the great 
cape at the extremity of northeast Greenland, placed 
there by Peary in honor of his tireless co¬ 
worker, was pointed out by me on various oc¬ 
casions when foreign visitors were on board and the 
fine London “Times” map of the North, Polar 
regions was spread on the cabin table. I always sus¬ 
pected that Dr. Bridgman liked to have me do this. 
It was the one bit of vanity I was able to uncover 
in a nature altogether unassuming. 

Faith in Ultimate Human Goodness. 

He often spoke of the Psi U fraternity and of the 
fine influence of the Greek letter societies on col¬ 
lege life. It seems to me that fraternity life, if 
justified at all, is made worthy by such loyalty as his. 
The influence of his early life as a student at Am¬ 
herst carried with him to the end. With all his 
keen insight into the folly and wickedness of men, 
he held an abounding faith in the ultimate human 
goodness. He had fought many hard fights, striking 
blows without fear, but his work never left a trace 
of bitterness. On occasion, if aroused, he could be 
forceful in expression, damning a thing without 
hesitation. He had never failed to do his part to 
uphold right when threatened by wrong. He would 
take a stand even against popular clamor and carry 
through. 

The many-sided life of Dr. Bridgman came to me 
in astonishing variety as we talked. At sea, weeks 
at a time, we held many conferences on the prob¬ 
lem of training the boy. He came to be a great 
believer in the work of our State schoolship, over 
and over again expressing his satisfaction in having 
made the cruise. He spoke of the future when the 
Empire State would have a fine schoolship equal 
to the Belgian ship L’Avenir, which we visited in 
Antwerp. One day he said suddenly. “Our new 
ship should have a New York name. I would sug¬ 
gest Excelsior.” 

But his published letters convey his impressions of 
the ship better than any words of mine. One little 
point I noticed, and it was characteristic. On com¬ 
ing up from the officers companionway to the spar 
deck he almost always walked forward among the 
boys. Groups of boys would form around him in 
the dog watches, or when, as on a Sunday, we were 
not busy with work or drills. He was all over the 
ship, interested in every detail of her management, 
in every item of her equipment. He attended lec¬ 
tures on navigation, explored the engine room and 
watched the cooks preparing food in the galley. 
Whenever boys were aloft he would stand as if 
fascinated watching them scramble out on the 
yards. His interest in the cadet paper, “The Bin¬ 
nacle,” prepared and printed on board by mimeo¬ 
graph, was that of a lover of newspapers. He in¬ 
tended to have copies of “The Binnacle” deposited 
in the State Library at Albany. 

If his newspaper held first place in his business 
affections, his directorship in the Brooklyn Edison 
Company was a close second. Often he would talk 
of the method by which the board of directors of 


44 


that corporation are kept in close touch with theit 
large affairs, their minutes of the previous meeting 
ready at each place and their business dispatched 
in rapid order. 

His service as a regent brought forth many kindly 
stories of that august body, for Dr. Bridgman was 
an educator with the eager heart of an enthusiast. 
On our arrival in the Thames he was delighted 
when he found he could communicate with Regents 
Alexander and Byrne by radio. Both of these 
gentlemen accepted our invitation, and Dr. Bridgman 
took a special delight in seeing them piped over the 
side. 

Colorful Days in Foreign Parts. 

But the tale of twelve weeks of daily contact with 
a personality that gained in depth with every day 
is no easy task to set down. Only the merest out¬ 
line may be conveyed to print. The colorful days in 
foreign ports, as in the tropic wonder of Aladeira, 
where we lunched with the Blandys at Palheiro, and 
dined with Marconi on the famous Elettra, stand out 
amid the shifting impressions and events. When 
Marconi took us into his laboratory on the yacht, 
handing us a fresh shoot of news direct from Lon¬ 
don via the ether, Dr. Bridgman secured his sig¬ 
nature on the historic sheet, intending to present it 
to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. 

At Tenerifife he rose early, as we approached the 
island, to see the great peak rising over two miles 
from the sea. On our last Sunday ashore he ac¬ 
companied us on a hike, the consul at Teneriffe, Mr. 
W. P. George, having arranged to take us through a 
picturesque portion of the island. We rode to La 
Laguna, inspected the University of San Fernando 
with its great library of ancient times. The Gover¬ 
nor of Teneriffe and the Regent of San Fernando 
headed a delegation of citizens to meet us. To 
Dr. Bridgman they paid the deep respect due his 
years of honors. 

We then went on to Tacaronte, where he pre¬ 
tended to be indignant because we insisted he stay 
with the automobiles while the consul led us for a 
two and a half-hour-tour of rough and rapid walk¬ 
ing far along the coast to the famous well of Sauzal, 
where washerwomen sing at their work. While 
there is water in the well the village washes, even 
on Sunday, after early mass. 

“Well, ril look out for the lunch,” he said at last, 
settling down to enjoy the shade of a dragon tree 
with a copy of Brown’s Guide which he drew from 
his pocket. He never wasted a moment, it seemed. 
To him life was a thing to be used faithfully. 


On our return he joined us at lunch and when 
bottles of cool Pilsner were produced, great gen¬ 
erous bottles, he laughingly poured out Poland 
water brought from the ship. 

“I’m drinking from a bottle anyhow,” he remarked. 

When one of the boys started to take a picture of 
the party I remarked that the regent had better get 
out of range with so much evidence of empty beer 
bottles about. He stepped from where he was and 
stood among the boys when the picture was taken, 
the beer bottles all about him as big as life. 

Methodical in Life’s Record. 

On the day of his coming on board he presented 
his commission, engrossed on sheepskin, with the 
seal on it of the State of New York, asking me to 
note on it the fact of his arrival, and due entry was 
also made in the ship’s log. He said then that he 
expected to leave the impressive document for his 
grandson and hoped I would also enter on it the 
fact of the conclusion of his mission as he wished 
the record to be complete. 

He so conducted every day of his life that each 
day, and each hour found him with the record 
thought brought to date and correctly balanced. He 
was an indefatigable worker; he never allowed his 
impressions of a place to cool before inditing his 
letters. During his last days, even the next to the 
last when he had a slight attack of stomach trouble, 
he kept remarkably cheerful. He left his berth on 
Monday night at midnight and went on deck. His 
remark to Mr. Davidson, the chief engineer, was: 
“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.” 
Then the doctor took him in hand and watched over 
him until the end. And the end was sudden and 
without pain. Life departed quietly, leaving his 
features serene. 

The passing of a soul from the earthly clay is a 
fearful thing, a heart-rending thing to witness, for 
those left behind. A transcendent spirit seemed to 
hover over us, but the realization that he was no longer 
to walk our decks, no longer to greet us in the 
morning, to yarn with us at night, filled the New¬ 
port with the genuine grief that shipmates feel when 
a brave spirit has gone over the side. 

Four bells had struck on deck. I looked at my 
watch and it was fifteen minutes after six. Our 
position, pricked off on the chart by Mr. Bick- 
nell, the navigator, was Latitude 29 degrees, 44 
minutes North; Longitude 56 degrees, 32 minutes 
West. 


45 


(The Brooklyn Standard Union—Sept. 26. 1924) 


HERBERT L. BRIDGMAN, EDUCATOR AND EX¬ 
PLORER, DIES ON NEWPORT AT SEA 


Herbert L. Bridgman, famous explorer, Regent of the University of the State of New 
York and business manager of The Standard Union, died Wednesday in mid-Atlantic aboard 
the State schoolship Newport, according to a radiogram received today from Capt. Felix 
Riesenberg, its commander. Although 80 years of age, Mr. Bridgman had been in excellent 
health up to the moment of his death. His home was at 604 Carlton Avenue. The Newport 
is expected today at Hamilton, Bermuda, and will hasten for this port, bearing the body of 
Mr. Bridgman. Details of his funeral will await word from the commander. 


It was Mr. Bridgman who made possible the dis¬ 
covery of the North Pole by the late Admiral Peary. 
As secretary of the Peary Arctic Club, he organized 
and promoted the voyage of the Roosevelt, which 
bore the discoverer to the Arctic. Mr. Bridgman had 
previously served as historian of one and com¬ 
mander of two other Peary auxiliary expeditions. 

When, in the summer of 1909, the world was elec¬ 
trified by the news that Admiral Peary had con¬ 
quered at last and had planted the American flag 
on the Pole, the first message came to Mr. Bridg¬ 
man in Brooklyn, at that moment busily engaged in 
the effort to refute the rival claim of Dr. Cook. 

Peary’s wire to Brooklyn consisted of one word, 
“Sun.” Mr. Bridgman, with whom this method of 
signaling the good news had been arranged in ad¬ 
vance, called for the representatives of the big press 
associations and announced to them that Peary had 
reached the Pole. He was well acquainted with the 
qualifications of Dr. Cook, who had accompanied him 
as ship’s surgeon on one of the earlier Peary expe¬ 
ditions that Mr. Bridgman commanded. 

Mr. Bridgman was an outstanding figure in the 
affairs of Brooklyn and one of the most noted of 
world travelers. To an advanced age, he had re¬ 
mained in splendid health, with the physique of an 
athlete, and his decision to cross the Atlantic with 
the school boys was typical of his love for voyaging. 

The radio message from Capt. Riesenberg, which 
came as a totally unexpected shock to Brooklyn¬ 
ites, read as follows: 

RADIOGRAM 

Radio Corporation of America, received at 4 

Broad street, New York, Sept.. 26, 1924, 1:51 

A. M. 

Schoolship Newport (NMH) 

Standard Union, 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Regent Herbert L. Bridgman died six-fifteen 


morning. Sept. 24. Lat. 29 degrees, 44 minutes 
north; Ion. 56 degrees 32 minutes west. 

Death sudden after slight illness. Was attend¬ 
ed by ship’s surgeon. Dr. Kelly. Captain and 
surgeons were present at time of death; re¬ 
sult of sudden stroke and hemorrhage. He died 
without pain. 

Regent Bridgman was on deck enjoying fine 
weather the day before his death. He was in 
high spirits and spoke of many activities he had 
in mind on his return. This was his first illness 
on the cruise. His health seemed good just 
before his death. 

His papers and valuables have been sealed by 
a Board of Inventory. His body was wrapped 
in sheets and placed in the refrigerator room. 

It will be embalmed. A metallic coffin has been 
ordered. 

Regent Bridgman had endeared himself to 
all on board. A general muster was called at 
noon after his death. The ship was stopped for 
ten minutes, ensign and pennant half-masted 
and a prayer was read. 

Then proceeded full speed to Hamilton, Ber¬ 
muda. Will arrive Friday; leave for New York 
Saturday. Expect to arrive via Sandy Hook 
Tuesday. Will radio exact time. 

Guard of honor has been placed by the re¬ 
mains since time of death. Cadet guard will be 
ready to render honors on arrival. 

Riesenberg. 

MR. BRIDGMAN’S CAREER. 

Herbert Lawrence Bridgman was born at Am¬ 
herst, Mass., May 30, 1844. He was the son of 
Richard Baxter and Mary Nutting Bridgman. He 
was educated at Amherst College, the Alma Mater 
of President Coolidge, and throughout his long life 
he remained in close touch with the town of his 
birth and the colloge that educated him. He was one 


46 



of the most enthusiastic of Amherst alumni, attend¬ 
ing every commencement ceremony and every re¬ 
union since his graduation. 

The same spirit of energetic loyalty made him one 
of the best known members of the Psi Upsilon fra¬ 
ternity, to which he was elected as an undergrad¬ 
uate. He had been a member of the executive coun¬ 
cil of the fraternity since 1877 and its president 
since 1883. He was a member also of the Phi Beta 
Kappa and ex-president of the Amherst Association. 

On Sept. 7, 1887, Mr. Bridgman married Helen 
Bartlett, of New York, a gifted writer, by whom he 
is survived. Other survivors are Raymond L. Bridg¬ 
man, of Auburndale, Mass.; Mrs. Robert Bridgman, 
a daughter-in-law; two grandchildren, a brother and 
five sisters. 

Entered Newspaper Life in 1864. 

Mr. Bridgman had been engaged in newspaper 
work since 1864. After connections with papers in 
New York, Washington and Springfield, Mass., he 
joined the staff of Frank Leslie's Weekly and later 
of the New York “Press,” and in 1889 became busi¬ 
ness manager of The Standard Union, which posi¬ 
tion he held up to the time of his death. He was 
a prominent figure in national journalism. After a 
term as chairman of the New York Publishers’ As¬ 
sociation, he became for three terms the president 
of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association. 

Mr. Bridgman was one of the most widely trav¬ 
eled of men. His acquaintanceship covered the globe, 
and his daily mail kept him in touch with every 
corner of civilization. 

A Polar Enthusiast. 

He was an enthusiast in the cause of polar explo¬ 
ration and for a long time served as secretary of 
the Peary Arctic Club. The late Admiral Peary was 
one of his most devoted friends, and he found in 
Mr. Bridgman an eloquent advocate and tireless 
cooperator. 

Mr. Bridgman was historian of the Peary auxil¬ 
iary expedition in 1894. Three years later he was 
assistant to Prof. Libbey in the famous scaling of 
the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico. He com¬ 
manded two more Peary auxiliary expeditions, 
aboard the Diana in 1899 and the Erik in 1901. 

Admiral Peary’s first message to the waiting 
world, following his discovery of the Pole in 1909, 
was addressed to Mr. Bridgman in Brooklyn. Until 
the arrival of the explorer himself Mr. Bridgman 
bore the brunt of refutation of the rival claims of 
Dr. Cook, and he never hesitated, in the midst of 
the popular furore over that arch faker, in his belief 
that this was an effort to cloud the glory of Peary’s 
exploit. 

His Conventions and Journeys. 

Mr. Bridgman was a delegate of the United States 
National Geographical Society, the Peary Arctic 
Club, the Explorers Club and the Arctic Club to the 
International Congress for the Study of the Polar 


Regions, held at Brussels in 1906. In a similar capa¬ 
city he attended further international gatherings of 
explorers at Brussels in 1908 and Rome in 1913. 

There were other notable journeys to the Sudan, 
to Bulgaria, to Hawaii. Mr. Bridgman wrote exten¬ 
sively of his travels and of his impressions of for¬ 
eign parts. On his journey to Hawaii two years ago 
he shipped as “freight clerk” aboard the new steamer 
Haleakala on its maiden voyage. 

In 1905 he went up the Nile, through the “Sudd,” 
as far as Gondokoro, stopping on the return voyage 
at Khartoum, there meeting Sir Reginald Wingate, 
then Sirdar of the Sudan, who became a lifelong 
friend. 

Founder of Alpine Club. 

Mr. Bridgman was one of the founders of the 
American Alpine Club. He was a member of the 
Royal, American, National and Philadelphia Geo¬ 
graphical societies and of the Association of Amer¬ 
ican Geographers. Since 1915 he had been president 
of the department of geography of the Brooklyn In¬ 
stitute of Arts and Sciences and chairman of its 
executive committee. 

He was also an honorary fellow of the American 
Museum of Natural History and vice-president of 
the American Scenic and Historic Preservation So¬ 
ciety. The museums of the metropolitan area all 
knew and cherished him as an enthusiastic friend. 

Mr. Bridgman held the honorary degree of LL.D., 
bestowed by his alma mater, Amherst, in 1920. 
Throughout his long and active life he was a big 
figure in the field of education. For many years 
he was a lecturer on the staff of the Department of 
Education in this city. He was a friend and advisor 
of many of the leaders in city educational circles. 

Elected State Regent. 

In 1917 Mr. Bridgman was elected a member of 
the Board of Regents of New York State, succeed¬ 
ing the late William Berri, publisher of The 
Standard Union. 

In June, 1917, Mr. Bridgman was elected director 
of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of 
Brooklyn, with Charles A. Boody, to fill vacancies 
in the board created by the deaths of William Berri 
and William F. Sheehan. 

At their meeting Feb. 3, 1919, the trustees of the 
American Museum of National History elected Her¬ 
bert L. Bridgman an Honorary Fellow of the insti¬ 
tution in recognition of his valuable services on a 
number of its most important exploration commit¬ 
tees, and in especial acknowledgement of his con¬ 
tribution to the advancement of science and educa¬ 
tion through his writings in the public press. 

Among others sharing this coveted honor were 
Roald Amundsen, Dr. Bashford Dean, Lieut. George 

T. Emmons, U. S. N.; George Bird Grinnell, Baron 
Ludovic Moncheur, Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, 

U. S. N.; Dr. Leonard C. Sanford, Vilhjalmur Ste- 


47 


fansson, Sir Ernest Henry Shacldeton and Col. 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

Decorated by Bulgaria. 

The consul general of Bulgaria in New York, on 
behalf of King Ferdinand, in December, 1921, con¬ 
ferred on Mr. Bridgman the rank of Officer of the 
Order of St. Alexander in recognition of his writ¬ 
ings on Bulgaria and his travel in that country. 

He was awarded both the medal and diploma of 
the order, which corresponds in prestige to the 
Order of St. Leopold of Belgium. He was already 
a chevalier of the Order of St. Leopold II, a rank 
conferred on him by King Leopold, of the Belgians, 
in 1908, in recognition of his friendliness to the 
Belgian people and his services as a delegate from 
the United States to the Polar Congress. 

Dr. Bridgman made a tour of Bulgaria and the 
Near East in 1913 and often spoke and wrote of his 
experiences there. 

Last Trip to Hawaii. 

On April 9, 1923, Dr. Bridgman arrived in Brook¬ 
lyn after a seventeen weeks’ journey through the 
Panama Canal to Southern California and the 
Hawaiian Islands. He returned with official replies 
to the messages which he bore from the University 
of the State of New York to the Department of 
Public Instruction of the Territory and from the 
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce to that of 
Honolulu. 

In addition he carried with him a communication 
to the local chamber of commerce from that of 
Hilo, second city of the islands, and honorable dis¬ 
charge by the United States Shipping Commission¬ 
ers as “freight clerk” at 25 cents a month, which 


he “collected,” of the Inter-Island’s new Haleakala, 
from Philadelphia, Feb. 17, 1923, certifying that his 
character, ability and seammanship were all “very 
good.” 

During his stay in Honolulu Dr. Bridgman con¬ 
ferred at length with Major-Gen. Charles P. Sum- 
merall, commanding the Department of Hawaii, and 
Admiral Edward Simpson, commanding the Pearl 
Harbor Naval Station; Gov. Wallace R. Farrington 
and others. 

While in Honolulu he explored the active crater 
at Kilauea with Superintendent Boles as guide; spent 
a night at the rest house 10,000 feet above sea level 
on the summit of Haleakala, largest crater in the 
world, and gave his “Peary’s Conquest of the Pole” 
illustrated lecture in Honolulu. 

Final Cruise on the Newport. 

Referring to himself as an “ancient mariner”—he 
had just celebrated his eightieth birthday—Mr. 
Bridgman accepted with alacrity the invitation to 
accompany the cadets on their annual cruise aboard 
the Newport. He represented the University of the 
State of New York, of which he was a regent, and 
which sponsors this floating academy, and while 
aboard he lectured on American history and civics 
to the schoolboys. He wrote a series of mail dis¬ 
patches, describing his cruise, which have appeared 
on recent Sundays in this newspaper. 

Mr. Bridgman’s clubs included the Harvard, Trav¬ 
elers, Union League, Psi Upsilon, Explorers, Hamil¬ 
ton and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. He had 
been one of the founders of the University Club 
of Brooklyn. 


48 


(From the “Editor and Publisher”) 


AN ANCIENT MARINER PASSETH 


Tlemarkable Career of Herbert L. ^ridgman, ^wice A. N. P. A. President, 35 Years 
on ^rookhn Standard Union, Polar Explorer, Champion of Peary, Exposer of 
Cool^ Had Astonishing World-Wide News Contacts. 


(An Appreciation by One of Dr. Bridgman's 
Associates.) 

That one normal-sized head could carry all Herbert 
L. Bridgman knew was the daily wonder through 
35 years of his association with the staff of the 
Brooklyn Standard Union. 

To his fellow-workers in this particular vineyard 
Mr. Bridgman was a prodigy. Globe-trotter, lecturer, 
author, explorer, educator—he was all of these to 
the world, but to the members of the staff that 
claimed his efforts he was more than these—he was 
a good newspaper man, with a most marvelous equip¬ 
ment, that never “ran down” despite its constant use 
to the age of 80. He had a great head, crammed 
with facts of world-wide lore—but it was never a 
big head. Despite his intellectual eminence, that in 
some others might have been a terrifying condi¬ 
tion, his make-up had in it nothing of aloofness. 
He was one of us, especially when we were hard 
at work. 

The daily press has duly noted the death of Mr. 
Bridgman at latitude so-and-so north and longitude 
so-and-so west. It has catalogued the learned so¬ 
cieties to which he belonged, approximately two 
stickfulls of type; the decorations that had been 
pinned on him, two sticks more; and the travels 
that he had left behind, perhaps four or five sticks. 
The men of The Standard Union were duly im¬ 
pressed by these aspects of world greatness, but 
they are in excellent position to submit that the 
most important count in favor of this big man who 
has just passed away was—that he was, to and past 
his 80th birthday, a mighty good newspaper man. 

Mr Bridgman, in his post as business manager 
of this newspaper, never forgot to be a reporter. 
He was a specialist on finding the elusive item in 
the least likely place. His tremendous mail, pouring 
in from every quarter of the globe, yielded him one 
“lead” after another day after day. 

One of the busiest of mortals, forever bustling 
about, he was never too pressed for time to report 
to the city desk. He laid his finger on the good 
stuff, frequently important stuff, lurking in the most 
unsuspected quarters. 

History records that Mr. Bridgman climbed the 
Mesa Encantada with Dr. Libbey. The members of 
his own staff were properly pleased at the exploit, 
but may be pardoned for feeling that it is more im¬ 
portant to record, in the hour of the present be¬ 


reavement, that he climbed up to the desk day after 
day with matter for publication that nobody else 
could ever have found. Mr. Bridgman was a liv¬ 
ing object lesson in how to read the papers. 

In the midst of his astonishing contacts with the 
world outside he always thought of his paper in 
Brooklyn. Descriptive matter poured off his pen 
during leisure moments that he managed somehow 
to find on his journeys to the Sudan, to Bulgaria, 
to Hawaii, to everywhere else under the sun. The 
moment of his death found two lengthy travel 
articles, with the initials H. L. B. modestly displayed, 
in type waiting to be used. 

His office in the Standard Union building basked 
in the full glare of publicity during the never-to-be- 
forgotten days of the Peary-Cook squabble. Mr. 
Bridgman was devoted to Peary with an unflinching 
loyalty. He knew more about Dr. Cook than any¬ 
body else in town, for that arch faker had accom¬ 
panied Mr. Bridgman to the Arctic some years be¬ 
fore. So when the whole world was flinging flowers 
into Cook’s lap, Mr. Bridgman was overcome with 
chagrin. In the midst of extravagant tributes to 
his fellow-Brooklynite, he cried out in the editorial 
columns of his paper for caution. He wrote: 

“After the first flush of surprise the most careful 
scrutiny will follow. The dramatic and picturesque 
‘special’ gives way to records, diaries, observations, 
track charts, courses, locations and all the other 
media by which science establishes facts. Nobody 
knows this better than Dr. Cook, and though his 
expedition has no official relation to any govern¬ 
ment or scientific society, he will, of course, recog¬ 
nize the moral and honorable obligation and insist 
that his claims to the highest geographical distinc¬ 
tion be irrefutably established.” 

This, it must be remembered, was written on a 
day when subscriptions for the ornamental civic 
arch that was to greet the returning Doctor were 
being collected. Shining through Mr. Bridgman’s 
scientific distrust of Dr. Cook’s claims was his en¬ 
thusiastic faith in Commander Peary, from whom he 
was daily awaiting the glad tidings that were destined 
to be not much longer delayed. 

The word of caution was written on Sept. 2, 
1909. Mr. Bridgman went away over the Labor 
Day holiday that followed. So did many persons of 
importance in the big press associations. That will 
perhaps explain the guarded fashion in which 


49 




the actual bulletin of Peary’s discovery was received. 
Because of the furor over Cook it seemed to be 
regarded as a confusing complication. 

For some reason not at all connected with the 
wishes of the staff, the Standard Union went to 
press on the 6th just as though it had not been 
Labor Day. The main editions were off the presses 
when a cablegram from Newfoundland was dis¬ 
covered on the desk of the absent Mr. Bridgman. 

It read, cryptically: 

“Bridgman, Standard Union, Brooklyn. 

“Sun. Roosevelt Safe. 

“Peary.” 

Seemingly meaningless, it meant everything in the 
world. Had it read “moon,” it would have been a 
confession that Peary had failed. But “sun”—that 
meant victory. The office decoded the dispatch, 
put the story on the street and notified the asso¬ 
ciations. They required to be informed just what 
“sun” meant. They were told that it meant Peary 
“had nailed the Stars and Stripes to the Pole.” 
Accordingly the news went out that Peary, in a 
very un-Peary-like way, had written that bombastic 
wire. 

How Mr. Bridgman hurried back to Brooklyn, es¬ 
tablished connection with Commander Peary and ob¬ 
tained from him the natives’ assurance that Dr. 
Cook “had never gone out of sight of land” in the 
Arctic, belongs to history. 

Nobody would ever have taken him for an 
octogenarian. He had a splendid frame, with the 
chest and shoulders of an athlete. With the excep¬ 
tion of a slight attack about two years ago, which 
he shook off almost immediately, his office never 
knew him to report sick. In his enthusiasm and 
zest for life he was one of the youngest members 
of this newspaper family. 

A continual interest was his Sunday editorial in 
the Standard Union. The space was reserved for 
him every week, and although the articles were 
never signed they were unmistakably his. They 
covered an enormous range. These, for instance, 
were his contributions in a specimen month, which 
happens to be last February: 

“Celebrations by Wholesale”—a cutting exposure of 
the project to spend a few millions of public money 
on meaningless civic ceremonials. 

“Lincoln: Fifty-nine Years After”—appropriate 
to the birthday. 

“Reforming the Law and La^wyers”—an examina¬ 
tion of a bench and bar report on legalistic defects. 

“Has the Port Authority Cold Feet?”—spurring a 
famous super-governmental body. 

In addition to these were casual articles every 
now and then on the projects, personalities and 
causes dearest to his heart. His handwriting was 
atrocious. It was probably worse than Greeley’s. He 
had, further, a curious habit of submitting stuff on 


odd sizes and varieties of copy paper. Further 
marks of the genius, of course. 

Mr, Bridgman was the constant theme of discus¬ 
sion in his office. “And still they gazed, and still 
the wonder grew.” One day a reporter would rub 
elbows with him at luncheon time at a side-arm 
chair place where the pie and coffee were a nickel 
apiece. The next day the same reporter was likely 
as not to be assigned to cover a luncheon given by 
Mr. Bridgman at the Hamilton Club to some am¬ 
bassador or potentate. You could only surmise 
which style of refection he preferred. He walked 
to work, almost invariably. 

When he decided to take the trip across his be¬ 
loved sea on the Newport he gave out the news 
to the other papers, adding this characteristic para- 
gaph of self-appraisal: 

“This ‘ancient mariner’ has made three Peary 
Arctic auxiliary cruises: in the Falcon in 1894; 
Diana, in 1899, and Erik, in 1901, in command of the 
last two, and holds an honorable discharge, 
‘character, ability and seamanship good,’ by the U. S. 
Shipping Commission, from his position as freight 
clerk at 25 cents per month in the Hawaiian Inter- 
Island’s new Haleakala on her maiden voyage last 
year from Philadelphia to Honolulu.” 

There was an impressive muster aboard the New¬ 
port as it neared Bermuda. It may be read in 
Mr. Bridgman’s own words, written a month be¬ 
fore, describing a duplicate of the scene: 

“Officers in spick and span new uniforms, but 
tons and braid bright, trousers razor-creased, the 
State insignia flashing, saunter on the quarter deck, 
the barefooted lads in spotless whites gather in 
groups in the waist, the familiar checked shirts of 
the bos’n and his mate are covered by blue brass- 
buttoned reefers, deck work is knocked off and a 
general air of watchful waiting prevails as the 
ship rolls steadily along on her course. At 10:45 
the bugler comes to the mast, blows the warning 
call for inspection and muster, and soon the forma¬ 
tions are rapidly going on. Commissioned officers 
on the quarter deck, abaft the mizzen mast; the 
warrant officers facing and just forward of them; 
petty officers, some wearing stripes of honorable war 
service, and crew in blue uniforms, or clean work¬ 
ing clothes, on the port side, and the cadets, white- 
capped and barefooted, in two platoons, engineers 
on the port deck, department on the starboard.” 

But at this point Mr. Bridgman’s description is 
dropped, and Capt. Felix Riesenberg of the Newport 
takes it up: 

“The muster completed,” said his wireless dis¬ 
patch, “the ship was stopped for ten minutes, en¬ 
sign and pennant half-masted and a prayer was read. 
Then proceeded full speed to Hamilton. Bermuda.” 

So, fittingly ended the last cruise of this “ancient 
mariner.” It was the death of a good newspaper 
man, who had sent to his office an advance story 
that covered it. 


50 


EDITORIAL TRIBUTES 


Following are editorial tributes to Regent Bridgman from New York City nempapers and 
other publications: 

(From The Standard Union) 


Herbert Lawrence Bridgman. 

Of all the residents of Brooklyn during recent 
years, the one whose death is recorded to-day was 
the best known throughout the world. This was not 
because of any one striking achievement, though 
perhaps that which will cause his name to stand the 
longest on the pages of history was his double ser¬ 
vice in sustaining unflaggingly the great enterprise 
that placed the Stars and Stripes at the North Pole 
and afterward in rescuing from envious detraction 
the name of Peary, the discoverer, and causing truth 
to prevail over falsehood. The man who is now so 
suddenly taken from us was endowed with a mar¬ 
vellous catholicity of spirit, zest of life, versatility 
of talent and capacity for friendship. It was of the 
very essence of the character of Herbert Lawrence 
Bridgman that he should be interested in personal¬ 
ities, in undertakings, in all that goes to make up 
the life of the world; his energy carried him far 
in travels upon the face of the waters and over the 
continents; his skill in affairs made him a counsel¬ 
lor eagerly sought, an executive efficiently followed; 
his geniality and loyalty caused him to be prized as 
a companion and associate. Anyone who came near 
to him, in personal or public affairs, felt the force 
of his character, like to that influence which a great 
planet exerts on lesser bodies that approach his 
orbit. Now the magnificent frame and the noble 
countenance that so fittingly represented him in life 
are being borne silently over the waves back to the 
land of his birth and of his ancestors’ birth; and it 
may be well said in the words of the old chronicler: 
“There is a prince and a great man fallen this day.” 

Learned societies, business asociates, official col¬ 
leagues, men of note throughout the world, will join 
during the weeks to come in the expressions of re¬ 
gret and appreciation that fittingly mark his passing 
from this world. Friends in all walks of life will 
condole with each other upon their common loss. 
It is with pride and sorrow that The Standard 
Union, where was Mr. Bridgman’s particular and 
beloved business home these many, many years, 
pays a tribute to a comradeship so close that noth¬ 
ing less potent than invincible death could break it. 
Exceeded in intimacy only by the sacred affection of 
the fireside, this long association now becomes a 
treasured memory and a happy reminiscence which 
alone can soften the pang of the present grief. 

In all the deeper matters of personality Mr. Bridg¬ 
man was the kind of man one would wish might be 
met more frequently. If for nothing else, he did 
good to humanity through his power to link to¬ 
gether in happy understanding the young and the 


old. An octogenarian he was at the time of his 
death—how incredible it seems!—yet his blithe spirit, 
his instant comprehension, made him dearly loved 
by those who were just starting out upon their 
careers and who could look to him as an example 
of enviable attainment. The roll of young people 
helped by this man, who was never too busy to do 
a favor and who always knew just what to do, 
would be, if ever written out, as long as the list of 
their elders with whom he collaborated in success. 

And though his tolerance was as wide as all 
humanity, yet there was in himself the incorruptible 
fibre of principle and probity inherited from a long 
line of Puritan ancestry. What a combination of 
sound sense, wide knowledge, practical skill, shrewd 
humor, unfaltering persistence and unshakable loy¬ 
alty went to make up this man! One cannot be re¬ 
conciled to his death, but it seems somehow charac¬ 
teristic that his life should pass away as it did, on a 
happy holiday, surrounded by admirers and friends 
young and old, at a place to be identified only as 
the crossing of such and such lines of latitude and 
longitude on the great waters. 


(From the New York “Sun”) 

Herbert L. Bridgman. 

With the death of Herbert L. Bridgman of The 
Standard Union, American journalism loses a loved 
and distinguished worker and the American public 
a friendly, vigorous and varied personality. 

Mr. Bridgman’s death was characteristic and 
worthy of his career. All his life a creative worker 
and a lover of worthwhile adventure, he had ship¬ 
ped on the State schoolship Newport, commanded 
by Capt. Felix Riesenberg, to make a voyage with 
the cadets of our merchant marine. He was stricken 
suddenly while apparently enjoying excellent health 
and while full of plans for future activity. He lived 
actively up to the day of his passing. 

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1844, Mr. 
Bridgman took into journalism the active creative 
ability for which the genuine Yankee is famous. His 
first work was done on the Springfield “Republi¬ 
can,” where as city editor he helped establish the 
character that paper has maintained. Later with the 
Associated Press, the New York “Press” and the 
New York “Tribune,” he finally became business 
manager of The Brooklyn Standard Union. In 
journalism he won general recognition, represented 
by his election to the chairmanship of the New York 
Publishers’ Association and the presidency of the 
American Publishers’ Association. 

But Mr. Bridgman’s interests were always larger 


51 




than journalism, and his conception of life included 
a constant activity in other fields. 

He was particularly enthusiastic about outdoor 
life and the exploration of unknown regions. In 
1897 as assistant to Prof. Libbey he scaled Mesa 
Encantada in New Mexico. He was constantly as¬ 
sociated with Peary in the latter’s long struggle to 
reach the North Pole. He wrote the history of the 
1894 expedition, commanded two auxiliary expedi¬ 
tions in 1899 and 1901, and though not on the 
“front,” was actively assisting the indefatigable ex¬ 
plorer when the long polar battle was finally won. 
Later, at the age of 60, he crossed the greater part 
of Africa, and in “The Sudan—^Africa From Sea to 
Center” gave a record of his strenuous journey. Mr. 
Bridgman was a regent of New York University, a 
fellow of the American Museum of Natural History 
and the recipient of foreign decorations. 

It is men of the Bridgman type that get most out 
of life and give most to others. Mr, Bridgman had 
not lived his full round of years; he had showed how 
little years count as compared wth energy, will and 
interest. And as he left much undone that would 
have profited by his touch, so he leaves many friends 
who will miss his vigor, his enthusiasm and his 
sanity. 


(From the Syracuse “Post Standard”) 
Herbert L. Bridgman. 

Herbert L. Bridgman was a refreshing and stimu¬ 
lating personality. He had been for sixty years in 
the newspaper business, all his later years with The 
Brooklyn Standard Union. His ability and authority 
were recognized by his election as president of the 
American Newspaper Publishers’ Association. But 
he never permitted the exactions of business to cur¬ 
tail his interest in education and scholarship, in 
travel and exploration. He kept his vigor and his 
charm by the multiplicity of his industries and by 
his ardent devotion to them. 

Dr. Bridgman was graduated from Amherst in 
1866 and was ever thereafter actively loyal to his 
college. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and 
Psi Upsilon, and ever thereafter was a factor in the 
national councils of these societies. He became in¬ 
terested in Polar exploration, served as secretary- 
treasurer of the Peary expeditions and their histo¬ 
rian, was a delegate to the various international 
Polar Congresses, and because it was not comforta¬ 
ble merely to sit at his desk as secretary, commanded 
two auxiliary Peary relief expeditions and helped Dr. 
Libbey scale Mesa Encantada in New Mexico. He 
was a founder of the American Alpine Club, officer 
of various geographic societies, and a visitor to the 
ends of the earth. 

He knew equally well Greenland and Hawaii. He 
was equally at home in a meeting of publishers dis¬ 
cussing newspaper problems; in the board of regents, 
where he succeeded William Berri in 1917, consider¬ 
ing general school problems; drifting down a 
strange river, studying the flora and fauna, or quot¬ 


ing Latin phrases with a professor from the univer¬ 
sity. He held decorations from the Kings of Bel¬ 
gium and Bulgaria—he had intimate friendships 
among the Bulgarians—and he was a director of 
the Museum of Natural History and the Scenic and 
Historic Preservation Society. 

It was characteristic of Herbert Bridgman that, 
with his eightieth birthday well behind him, he 
should go on a cruise in the State nautical school- 
ship, to ramble for three months about the Atlantic, 
teaching the boys and enjoying life with them. A 
cruise like that was fun for him. His step was as 
firm, his body sound, his mind as clear, his curiosity 
in this adventure as alert as he had been when he 
set forth the Arctic, twenty-five years ago. For 
the conduct of a life so full and so constantly alive, 
he never considered his years. Death has come to 
him suddenly at Bermuda, as he would have had it, 
the while he was busy about a new enterprise and 
without the delay of invalidism. 


(From the “N. Y. Times”) 

His Last Voyage. 

Herbert L. Bridgman, journalist by profession but 
with an avocational zest for exporation and a rare 
devotion to public service, has made his last voyage. 
He died aboard the State nautical training ship 
Newport, which had been making its annual summer 
cruise in foreign waters. He had gone on this voy¬ 
age at the age of 80, but with the spirit of youth, to 
study at first hand this particular phase of the 
State’s educational provision. He had in his younger 
days scaled difficult mountains. He had in robust 
middle age commanded expeditions into the Arctic 
regions. In approaching old age he visited the 
Sudan and other unfrequented parts of the earth. 
In recent years his journeys became less frequent, 
but he was busy with his mind and pen in many 
geographical enterprises, constantly endeavoring to 
lead the interest of others out into a full possession 
of the earth in which they live. It was his passion 
strong even in death. Had he lived in a period when 
there were greater undiscovered spaces, he would 
have been a Magellan or a Frobisher. As it was, he 
helped to keep the spirit of adventure alive in a 
workaday world—the most memorable expression 
of it being his unflagging zeal in support of the 
Peary expedition to the Pole. 

As a Regent of the University of the State of 
New York, to which he gave unstintedly of his 
time and thought in the last seven years of his life, 
he was officially interested in the nautical education 
aboard the training ship. But he was not content to 
inspect the theoretical part of the training ashore, 
though his years would have excused him from doing 
more than this. He accompanied the young sailors 
out to sea, as Ulysses in his age, saying: “It’s not 
too late to seek a newer world.” For to him the 
world was being made new every day. How com¬ 
pletely he entered into the youthful life of the ship. 


52 




his letters written during the voyage give some hint. 
One passage illustrates the color and feeling with 
which he expressed himself on occasion. On board 
the ship the death of the son of President Coolidge 
had been announced: 

“The cadets, listening in respectful silence, were 
dismissed and broke ranks—it was all over in a 
minute. But it was one of those memorable min¬ 
utes which last a lifetime and are never repeated. 
More fitting and sympathetic environment could 
hardly be imagined. The new moon, swinging low 
in the west, silvered the wake of the ship; the after¬ 
glow of a blood-red sun swung almost around the 
entire horizon; not a ripple broke the surface of 
the sea; sails and rigging, often noisy and unruly, 
now silent; the great stars, Vega almost exactly 
overheard, Altair over the port and Antares over the 
starboard bow, and Arcturus on the quarter, with 
Polaris and the Great Dipper away aloft in the 
north, with Jupiter abeam, high in the south. Here 
was a poem by the Almighty on the brevity of hu¬ 
man life and the limitations of his powers more 
effective than any ever written by man.” 

Mr. Bridgman was a citizen of a pattern to set 
before both youth and maturity. He not only did 
his particular work in the world and did it exceed¬ 
ing well; he also took an interest in everything that 
should concern the human mind. He did not fear 
to go beyond the old verges and push out into the 
unknown. He kept to the end a sympathy with 
children and youth, and in their behalf he gave him¬ 
self to the bettering of educational conditions in the 
State. His last voyage, in company with youth, is 
a fit symbol of the whole life of this man who, with 
uncommon modesty, great geniality and an adven¬ 
turous courage, illustrated to youth the best that one 
generation has to give to the next. 


(From The New York “Herald-Tribune”) 
Herbert Lawrence Bridgman. 

Publisher of “The Brooklyn Standard Union” for 
more than forty years, repeatedly honored with offi¬ 
cial recognition by his fellow publishers, Herbert 
Lawrence Bridgman was a distinguished figure in 
journalism. A man of less active habit might have 
been well content to pursue a single interest with 
thorough competence. Mr. Bridgman’s abounding 
physical and mental energy led him into manifold 
activities, upon which he bestowed a zeal as notable 
as his devotion to his newspaper. 

Especially whole-souled was his interest in Arctic 
exploration, dating from his days on The Tribune, 
which coincided with the Greeley expedition. He 
commanded two Peary auxiliary expeditions, was 
secretary of the Peary Arctic Club, and in every 
way was an indefatigable supporter of the explorer. 
Peary owed no little to his encouragement and as¬ 
sistance at a time when hope seemed forlorn. His 
name is outstanding in the hard work prefatory to 
the discovery of the North pole. 

Mr. Bridgman was an enthusiastic traveler, an 


alpinist, a geographer, a writer, a lecturer of good 
parts. With all the other claims upon his attention 
he found time to oversee the affairs of his college 
fraternity in minute detail, visiting its chapters year 
after year, advising and kindly admonishing with 
paternal vigilance. Indeed, he addressed every task 
in which he found pleasure as though it were his 
main vocation. He was a versatile man, a vibrant 
personality. 


(From the “Brooklyn Citizen”) 

Herbert L. Bridgman’s Death. 

The announcement of the death of Herbert L. 
Bridgman, business manager of The Standard 
Union, comes as a shock to the citizens of Brook¬ 
lyn. Few men in this borough were better known 
and none had more friends and admirers. 

Mr. Bridgman was a many-sided man. Explorer, 
scholar, scientist and newspaper man, his activities 
were boundless. From the time when he was grad¬ 
uated from Amherst College in 1866 he was in close 
connection with the affairs of the world and took 
a deep interest in all forms of modern progress. He 
was versatile but thorough. 

For sixty years he was a newspaper man, having 
entered the profession in 1864. He was one of the 
founders of the American Newspapers’ Association, 
which had its first meeting thirty years ago at Roch¬ 
ester. A friend and admirer of Admiral Peaiy for 
many years, he was the personal leader of three 
expeditions sent into the Arctic to relieve that in¬ 
trepid explorer when doubt was entertained as to 
Peary’s fate. He was one of the organizers of 
Peary’s expedition which reached the North Pole. 

At the age of sixty Mr. Bridgman made a journey 
up the Nile as far as Gondokoro, spending some 
little time at Khartoum, with Sir Reginald Wingate, 
the Sirdar of the Sudan, and later made other 
notable journeys to Bulgaria and Hawaii. 

He was a big figure in the field of education. For 
many years he was a lecturer on the staff of the 
Board of Education. In 1917 he was elected a mem¬ 
ber of the Board of Regents of New York State, 
succeeding the late William Berri, publisher of The 
Standard Union. 

Honored by foreign nations, admired by all his 
fellow citizens, beloved by his friends and acquaint¬ 
ances, he lived a full and happy life and died in 
harness, at the age of eighty, on board the U. S. 
school ship Newport, where he was studying at 
first hand this phase of educational training and 
giving the young sailors, in brief talks, the benefit 
of his wisdom and years of experience. The end 
was sudden, after slight illness, and he died with¬ 
out pain. 


(From the “Brooklyn Eagle”) 

Herbert L. Bridgman. 

It will surprise many people who read to-day of 
Herbert L. Bridgman’s death to learn that he was 


53 





in his eighty-first year. His physical age was never 
visible in his physical appearance or in his bearing. 
He looked younger than many men still in their 
fifties. His carriage was erect and sturdy. His con¬ 
versation was that of a man in his intellectual prime. 
When he wrote as he often did, for the columns of 
The Standard Union, of which he had been busi¬ 
ness manager for many years, his work was notable 
for its clearness, precision and the fund of infor¬ 
mation it disclosed. 

In the profession of journalism, which he entered 
in 1864, Dr. Bridgman achieved distinction. He was 
chairman of the New York Publishers’ Association 
and president of the American Newspaper Publish¬ 
ers’ Association. As a founder of the latter organ¬ 
ization he had survived nearly all of his associates. 
But more than his success in the newspaper field 
he had reason to value the national and interna¬ 
tional reputation which sprang from his interest and 
his achievements in the sphere of geographical re¬ 
search. 

He was Admiral Peary’s closest friend. He com¬ 
manded the two auxiliary expeditions sent to the 
Polar regions in Peary’s wake in 1899 and in 1901. 
He was one of the first to cast doubt on the fraud¬ 
ulent claim of Dr. Cook to enjoy honors that right¬ 
fully belonged to Peary, and in the controversy 
that followed he was one of Peary’s ablest cham¬ 
pions. It was to Dr. Bridgman that Peary first an¬ 
nounced the finding of the Pole. His work as an 
explorer, writer and lecturer was officially recog¬ 
nized through his appointments as American dele¬ 
gate to several international conferences on Polar 
exploration and by foreign governments, which be¬ 
stowed decorations upon him. 

Dr. Bridgman gave freely of his time and energy 
to the Brooklyn Institute’s Department of Geog¬ 
raphy, of which he was president. He frequently 
talked before audiences assembled under its aus¬ 
pices. As a speaker on these occasions and at other 
times, when his membership in the Board of Regents 
of this State gave him a peculiar authority in the 
discussion of education and cognate subjects, he was 
invariably heard with respect and profit. His was a 
life full of activity and singularly fruitful in worthy 
achievement. 

(Brooklyn “Times”) 

Herbert Lawrence Bridgman 

Herbert Lawrence Bridgman, wireless news of 
whose death at sea on the Navy training ship New¬ 
port, brought a shock to Brooklyn this morning, had 
more the appearance and manner of a conservative 
business man than of a daring adventurer and cul¬ 
tured and capable educator, yet he was all three, and 
a fine exemplar of American journalism in addition. 
To him in no small measure has been due the suc¬ 
cess of the Brooklyn Standard-Union, to which we 
now offer our condolences on the loss of a brilliant 
and successful chief. There was little in the aspect 
of the tall, quiet citizen so intimately known to so 


many of the leading men of this community, to sug¬ 
gest that his life was a continuous romance, that 
during those absences from the Standard-Union 
office in which, because of his diffident and retiring 
manner, he was scarcely missed, he was engaged in 
scaling mountain peaks of great altitude, or adding 
new chapters to the brilliant story of Arctic ex¬ 
ploration. Yet the history of the discovery of the 
Northern Pole in which he was Peary’s backer, 
friend, and aid in the field, would not be complete 
without his record. 

Mr. Bridgman was born in Amherst in 1844. 
Twenty-two years later he was graduated from the 
college of his native place. In 1864 he began the 
journalistic career which was to lead to his associa¬ 
tion under the ownership of William Berri, of the 
Brooklyn Standard-Union, with Murat Halstead and 
John Halton and the others whose enterprise and 
ability made that newspaper. He devoted himself 
largely to the business end of that enterprise, show¬ 
ing a mind for business rarely possessed by a jour¬ 
nalist and teacher. 

His fame came through his avocations. They 
were widely diversified. He had a passion for edu¬ 
cation and for Arctic exploration. The adventures 
of those who had gone into the unknown North in 
the hope of locating the Pole had a strong attrac¬ 
tion for him always. This attraction led him into 
association with Lieutenant Peary and he gave his 
support to the latter’s determination to plant the 
American flag on the top of the earth. He went 
North himself in 1894 as Historian of the Peary 
Auxiliarj'’ Expedition. In 1897, with Professor Libbey, 
he helped scale the Mesa Encantada in New Mexico. 
His lectures on exploration were deeply interesting 
in those years. He commanded the Diana and the 
Erik of the Peary expeditionary ships, and when 
finally the task was accomplished and Peary had 
achieved his life’s ambition, no small share of the 
credit went to the Brooklyn journalist. However, it 
was not only the peaks of mountains and the re¬ 
cesses of the Arctic that attracted him. He knew 
Africa in its strange places, and his lecture. “The 
Sudan-Africa From Sea to Center,” was of high 
value. 

It was perfectly logical and proper that he should 
have been appointed State Regent by Governor 
Whitman in 1917, as he contributed much to the 
cause of education in New York. 

This is only a brief outline of his brilliant and 
remarkable career, a mere summary of his diversi¬ 
fied and useful interests. He was as well known 
abroad as at home as his honors show. He was a 
Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II., of Belgium, 
and an officer of the Order of St. Alexander of 
Bulgaria. He was a delegate at Polar conferences 
ers’ Club, the Union League Club of New York, 
the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn and the Brook¬ 
lyn Chamber of Commerce—these associations 
of the breadth of his life. Member of the National 
Geographical Society, the Peary, the Arctic and the 
Explorers’ Clubs, a dozen other geographical so- 


54 



cieties, of the Alpine Club, of the Psi Upsilon college 
fraternity, president of the Department of Geo¬ 
graphy of the Brooklyn Institute, fellow of the 
American Museum of Natural History, member of 
the American Scenic and Historical Society, chair¬ 
man of the New York Publishers’ Association, presi¬ 
dent for a term of the American Newspaper Pub¬ 
lisher’s Association, member of the Harvard Travel¬ 
ers’ Club, the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn and the 
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce—these associations 
show his interest in world affairs and in the affairs 
of his own locality. His death will be deplored 
abroad, will leave poorer the educational system of 
the State, will deprive Brooklyn of a citizen who 
has reflected great honor upon it, and will take a 
great and admired figure from journalism. 

(From the Bulletin of the University of the 
State of New York) 

Herbert Lawrence Bridgman. 

The last clear call came to Regent Bridgman on 
the evening of September 24th while sitting on the 
deck of New York’s Nautical Schoolship Newport, 
homeward bound over a serene and untroubled sea. 
Had he been granted his choice, this surely would 
have been the way of his departure. With four 
score years behind him, he may well have surmised 
that he might meet his Pilot at the bar when he set 
out to sea. 

The activities of Mr. Bridgman’s long life breathed 
into those about him not only a contagious regard 
for the rugged virtues of his Puritan inheritance, 
but an inspiration to high purpose. So unusual were 
the varied concerns of his life that they have al¬ 
ready attracted the notice of many writers who 
would do honor to his career. He died at sea at a 
spot we can never know except as the crossing of a 
certain latitude and longitude, but he lived to help 
make possible the discovery of a place of no latitude 
and longitude, the North Pole. He had sailed the 
Arctic; he climbed the unsealed and enchanted 
mountain; he traversed the desert; he received the 
confidence of princes and governors and these things 
have been elsewhere set down. It is another side of 
his career with which this tribute, all too short to do 
him justice, is especially concerned; the more direct 
influence of his life upon the education of young 
men. Perhaps none of his activities can justly be 
divorced from this objective but some of them stand 
up high and clear as the mountains he loved. 

Mr. Bridgman was born at Amherst, Mass.; he 
was graduated from Amherst College in the class 
of 1866; from that date he attended every com¬ 
mencement of the college so far as it was in his 
power to do so; he was long the president of its 
alumni association and always a participant and 
counsellor in its activities. In college days he joined 
the Psi Upsilon fraternity; he was continuously in¬ 
terested in his local chapter, for 47 years, even to 
the end, a member of the national council of all the 
chapters, and for 41 years its president. He was his 


class secretary for 60 years. While still a student 
he became imbued with the purpose to become a 
newspaper man; he did become the forerunner of 
notable Amherst squad of journalists that followed 
close upon his footsteps—his brother Raymond, 
lalcott Williams, William C. Brownell and the 
Clarke Brothers. In his home days in the Connec¬ 
ticut Valley, the Springfield Republican was the 
household god at every hearthstone and Samuel 
Bowles the Second was its prophet. With gradu¬ 
ation from college, he hitched his wagon to this star 
and thus began the journalistic career that was the 
principal business of his life. 

These episodes of his youth are cited to indicate 
the character of the man. He looked carefully, made 
his choice and having put his hand to the plow never 
turned back. Discerning the good he clung with 
pertinacity to the things of his choice. Apart from 
his distinguished achievements which made up the 
avocations of his life, let it suffice here to say that 
it was such qualities as we have outlined, ripened 
by long experience, with educational men and meas¬ 
ures, fertilized and strengthened by perfect honesty, 
sincerity and gentility of heart, that he brought to 
his service as Regent of this University. Mr. Bridg¬ 
man succeeded in this office in 1917 the high- 
minded and great-hearted William Berri, proprietor 
of the Brooklyn Standard Union, the management 
of which came to Mr. Bridgman in proper sequence. 
Modestly and gradually acquainting himself with 
the Board and the almost imperial functions exer¬ 
cised by the Regents in educational administration, 
he completely won the confidence of his colleagues 
for his breadth of vision, his high ideals, clear com¬ 
mon sense in matters of policy, controversy or de¬ 
bate. His sturdy physique seemed the embodiment 
of his mind; something upright and dependable. His 
rugged face with its lurking whimsical smile bespoke 
a blessed endowment of that sense of humor which 
helps to surmount many a difficult situation. Of the 
special functions that he served on the Board, its 
work in the State Museum, in library extension, in 
visual education, he was not only the persistent 
supporter but the insistent promoter, and his editorial 
and news columns were very essential channels in 
keeping the public in touch with university activi¬ 
ties. As if to maintain a closer contact with practical 
educational work, he was for 30 years a lecturer 
for the board of education of Greater New York. 

An indomitable persistence in the work he knew 
to be good and in which he was convinced he could 
help, expressed the predominant quality of his 
spirit. The same tenacity displayed itself in his 
journalistic profession in which he rose through 
varied experiences to positions of responsibility and 
distinction. Scientific and geographical societies 
honored themselves by formal recognition of his 
service in exploring the remote corners of land and 
sea. His captain, Peary, baptized with his name 
Cape Bridgman, a point of land wnich stands as his 
memorial at the farthest north of the American 


55 



continent It will endure, but not longer than the 
widening circles of his own influence. 

Whether as commander on the bridge of his own 
ship or as able seaman on his own deck, his clear¬ 
ance and his discharge were ever in order for in¬ 
spection. And so with all his work. 

It was in his capacity as Regent that, in July last 
he shipped aboard the Newport, the State’s Nautical 
School under the control of the University, for its 


annual cruise, this time about the waters of the 
north Atlantic and into the ports of western Eu¬ 
rope. This “ancient mariner,’’ as he was pleased to 
call himself, was not to be an idle supercargo. He 
lectured to the cadets and sent back to his news¬ 
paper fascinating stories afloat and ashore. He ha'd 
made his cruise, had accomplished his purpose; then 
quietly and without distress he slipped his cable for 
an undiscovered country. 

John M. Clarke. 


56 


(The Brooklyn Standard Union—Nov. 25, 1924) 


MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR DR. H. L. BRIDGMAN 

cM^inutes Entered Upon Records of ^si U., of IVhose Executive Council He Was a 
v^ember for Fort^-Seven Years — Letters and Telegrams from ex-President Taft, 
Chauncey M. Depeu) and Many Others. 


Members of twenty-seven chapters of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity gathered last night, in 
honor of their Founder’s Day, at the Lotos Club, 110 West 57th Street, Manhattan, and 
paid simultaneous tribute to the memory of Dr. Herbert L. Bridgman, president of the 
fraternity’s council since 1884, who died suddenly aboard the New York schoolship New¬ 
port on Sept. 24 last, as she neared her home port after the annual trans-Atlantic cruise 
of the cadets. 


Educators, ministers, lawyers, doctors and Psi 
U’s high in the financial and industrial world—all 
of them men who have contributed greatly to the 
betterment of their chosen professions—and young 
men on the threshold of their careers stooci with 
bowed heads at the Lotos Club gathering while the 
Rev. Charles Henry Arndt, rector of Christ Epis¬ 
copal Church, Germantown, Pa., offered prayer 
which opened the memorial of the Psi Upsilon 
family. 

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Col¬ 
umbia University, presided. He paid a high tribute 
to Dr. Bridgman, declaring that his was a rare and 
rich and charming personality whose life had 
touched many important points with vigor and high 
intelligence. Dr. Bridgman, he said, had gone out of 
life carrying with him a rich and heavy burden of 
love and affection and of work well done. No one 
in the long history of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, 
he declared, had better earned or more rightly earned, 
the affectionate tribute which was paid him by his 
brothers everywhere last night. 

“Herbert L. Bridgman was our best beloved.” 

This was the tribute paid to the late educator, 
author and explorer by the members of the Psi 
Upsilon fraternity to which he devoted more than 
half a century of his life, by Earl D. Babst, presi¬ 
dent of the American Sugar Refining Company, 
Iota-Phi '93, who succeeded Dr. Bridgman as presi¬ 
dent of the fraternity. Mr. Bapst’s address was 
made in behalf of the Executive Council of the Psi 
Upsilon. 

George B. Mallon, at one time associate editor of 
“The Sun,” told of his personal and intimate asso¬ 
ciation with Dr. Bridgman. 

Dr. Butler’s Tribute. 

After the prayer. Dr. Butler, who presided, said: 

“Brother Psi Upsilons: This gathering drawn 
from a wide circle of chapters, is to do honor to the 
memory of a dear friend and brother, to take pride 
and pleasure in a record of his life and service. He 
was a rare and rich and a charming personality. He 
touched life at many important points, also with 
vigor and high intelligence, with fine purpose and 


with public benefit. His many-sided nature brought 
him in contact with science, exploration, discovery, 
and he pursued them with eager zeal. 

“He had contact with letters through his chosen 
profession which he adored and greatly loved and 
which led him into the fields of literature, of which 
so often it is the open door. He touched the public 
interest in his good citizenship, in his continued ef¬ 
forts for a better government of his city, state and 
nation, and for the improvement of those condi¬ 
tions under which modern men live. He cared 
greatly for his contact with education, and was 
deservedly proud of his office as Regent of the 
University of the State of New York, where he 
labored for years ardently and well to strengthen 
and develop the educational system in the Empire 
State. 

“He cared mightily for all these things and for 
other things, but I am disposed to think if he could 
be called back and asked which among them all was 
the chief interest of his life he would say it was 
the fraternity of his love and all his life-long mem¬ 
bership of service. 

“Queen Mary used to say after the loss of Calais, 
France, that when she died she was sure the name 
of Calais would be found written on her heart. It 
is hardly too much to think that the heart of our 
friend carried with it to the open door and down 
along the lane to eternity the symbol of Psi U. 
Nothing was nearer or dearer to his heart and his 
nature. 

“It meant boyhood friendships and experiences, it 
meant manhood’s enthusiasms and ideals. It meant 
service and reflection of the ripening years. He has 
gone out of our earthly life, carrying with him a 
rich and heavy burden of love and affection and of 
work well done. No one in the whole long history 
of the fraternity has better earned nor more richly 
earned the affectionate tribute which his brothers 
everywhere so gladly pay to him to-night. 

“I have great honor in presenting Brother George 
B. Mallon, of the Gamma, the home chapter of 
Brother Bridgman, who will speak on behalf of that 
portion of the fraternity.” 


57 




Gamma's Debt to Dr. Bridgman. 

Mr. Mallon said he cherished the memoiy of his 
association with Dr. Bridgman and paid a high 
tribute to his memory. 

“I have been asked to speak to you very briefly 
to-night about the Gamma’s debt to Herbert L. 
Bridgman,” he said. 

“I deeply regret that Edwin A. Grosvenor, known 
to many, who was taken into the chapter the year 
following Brother Bridgman, is not here to-night 
to represent Gamma. Ten days ago at our initiation, 
I heard Brother Grosvenor pay to Brother Bridg¬ 
man’s memory the finest eulogy I have ever heard 
one man pay to another and I remembered as he 
spoke, some ten or fifteen years ago when Brother 
Bridgman returned from a trip to Bulgaria, he told 
me that most of the rulers of Bulgaria at one time 
had been pupils of Prof. Grosvenor at Amherst 
College, and that Grosvenor’s name was a passport 
to everything that was worth while in Bulgaria. 

“Brother Bridgman returned to the Gamma initia¬ 
tion a year ago for the first time since the death of 
his son, a great tragedy in his life. All of you prob¬ 
ably have had the pleasure and the sentiment of be¬ 
ing present at the initiation of your boy into Psi 
U, and you can probably realize what that event 
meant to Brother Bridgman. A few years ago when 
his boy died. Brother Bridgfman told me he never 
could go back to another initiation. The memory of 
his son was beyond anything he could bear. A 
year ago, however, he did come back, for two reas¬ 
ons. The head of the house. Brother Merrill, was 
a grandson of the man who had initiated him and 
his own son was being taken into the chapter. I 
was ill in Montclair at the time, and I was deeply 
touched when, three days later, I received a letter 
from Brother Bridgman describing, in his character¬ 
istically fine style, the events of the evening, giving 
to me the names of the old men who had come back, 
winding up with the statement thus now he had 
made the plunge he was going to be a ‘regular’ 
again. 

“Brother Bridgman has always seemed to me to 
be the best exemplar of the New England college 
student of sixty years ago. He was born on a farm 
within sight of the college, a small-town boy. He 
drew health from Amherst air and life from the 
Pelham hills and the Holyoke range. He learned 
that kind of democracy which is our American ideal 
in the public school and the country college. 

Shared Success With Fraternity. 

"When success came to him later, he shared it 
generously with his town, college and his fraternity. 
Many other organizations have shared in the rich¬ 
ness of his judgment and in his inspiration, but none 
more deeply than the fraternity. Brother Bridgman 
and I had several strong mutual interests outside of 
the fraternity, if anything could be outside of the 
fraternity, and I noticed in the many conversations 
we had that almost invariably he brought the con¬ 
versation around to a discussion of Psi U. 


“He loved the Gamma chapter as all good Gamma 
men do, and I never could discover that he withheld 
any portion from any of the other chapters of the 
fraternity. He several times came down to see me 
to discuss some of the problems of the other chap¬ 
ters. He discussed them with a zeal and intelligence 
and personality that always have impressed me. 

“Brother Bridgman’s life, beginning in the sim¬ 
plicity of early days, carried him through a dis¬ 
tinguished course in college, and, as our chairman 
has said, into various fields of intellectual and phy¬ 
sical venture, ranging from publishing and author¬ 
ship to exploration in Africa and the Polar regions 
and, characteristically, to mountain climbing. 

"He conquered all obstacles by his energy and 
directness of purpose, and when he died at sea, 
which he loved, he was surrounded by youth, which 
he personified. He had served with distinction his 
college, his fraternity, his city, his State and his 
country. 

"These certainly are the attributes of greatness. 
He climbed always the upward, open road of con¬ 
tinual achievement . He died climbing and his body, 
like Merrill’s, is embalmed in the eternal snow on 
Mount Everest’s peak. 

"Many other men live in the recollection of Gam¬ 
ma, but Herbert L. Bridgman is enshrined in our 
hearts. If there is any truth, and I believe there is, 
in Maeterlinck’s mystic words that "The dead are 
dead only when we cease to think of them,” then 
Herbert L. Bridgman will never die to Psi U men. 

“In conclusion, may I say to you very earnestly 
to-night that I know that Brother Bridgman would 
not want to be remembered with any touch of sor¬ 
row, for his end came in the fullness of age and he 
would rather have us remember him as a happy 
warrior, a generous spirit, who had met the tasks 
that real life had wrought upon the span that graced 
his boyish thought.” 

Mr. Babst’s Address. 

Earl D. Babst in his address eulogizing Mr. 
Bridgman said: 

Herbert L. Bridgman was our best beloved. He 
was without doubt known personally to more gen¬ 
erations of undergraduates than any other man who 
ever wore the diamond of Psi Upsilon. 

The initiation, sixty-four years ago, of a tall and, 
we can fancy, awkward youth of eighteen, made one 
of the most notable entries in the long and honor 
roll of the Gamma. The Fraternity will always rest 
under a special obligation to the Gamma; the Gam¬ 
ma has long had the reflected glory of Brother 
Bridgman’s career. 

He was active in Psi Upsilon and in Amherst af¬ 
fairs from the beginning. One need only turn to 
the chapter symbols to learn of his undergraduate 
interest. The varied pursuits and rich gifts of later 
years are foreshadowed in his college record— 
winner of the Freshman Declamation prize. Com¬ 
mencement orator, member of Phi Beta Kappa. 


38 


Born in the town of Amherst in 1844, he lived 
within the shadow of the college of his youth. As 
a village boy, looking forward to the college, he 
had chosen Psi Upsilon before the Gamma chose 
him. He never lived far from Amherst. He re¬ 
turned for almost every initiation and commence¬ 
ment, so richly and so rarely, the memories of home, 
of boj^hood, of youth, of college days, and of his 
cherished Psi Upsilon, in which he was followed by 
brothers, a son and grandson. 

Rare Combination in Journalism. 

In the early years after college, Mr. Bridgman 
was associated with several press associations and 
publishers both as writer and as business manager— 
a combination rare in journalism. What is perhaps 
still more important is that he continued as secre¬ 
tary and as editor of the “Chronicles of the Class 
of 1866,” through many series and until the “Sands 
of Life” had run. 

In 1877, when Mr. Bridgman was assistant to the 
publisher of the New York “Tribune,” an event oc¬ 
curred which must be emphasized on this occasion 
at the Xi convention he was elected to the executive 
council of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity. From the 
very beginning Psi Upsilon has had a simple or¬ 
ganization. At present there are three bodies—the 
chapters, the convention and the executive council. 
For the first six years, or from 1833 to 1839, with 
only the Theta and Delta, there was a chapter or¬ 
ganization. The foundation of the Beta in 1839 
gave birth to the idea of a convention; and after 
the establishment of the Sigma in 1840, a conven¬ 
tion was held in the chapel of the University of the 
City of New York on Oct. 22, 1841—attended by 
forty-four members. Before the delegates came the 
consideration of establishing a chapter at Amherst, 
the publication of a catalogue, the holding of an an¬ 
nual convention, and the system of chapter letters 
which still prevails. 

For the next sixteen years the business of the 
fraternity was transacted directly through the con¬ 
vention. Meanwhile had come the establishment 
of Zeta. Lambda, Kappa, Psi, Xi, and Alpha, and 
consequently the need of a small permanent com¬ 
mittee to carry out the directions of the convention. 
This led, at the Gamma convention of 1857, to the 
formation of an executive committee composed of 
Morgan Dix, Lamba 1848; Henry R. Stiles, Delta 
1852, and William H. L. Barnes, Beta 1855, all three 
of whom lived in New York. 

With the admission of the Upsilon, Iota, Phi, and 
Omega, an executive council of five members was 
instituted at the Theta convention of 1869, and so 
continued nearly forty years. The slowly growing 
chapter roll had further additions—the Pi, Chi, Beta 
Beta, Eta, Tau, Mu, Rho, and Epsilon—and at the 
Delta convention of 1907 the council was again en¬ 
larged, this time to ten members, who are elected 
by the convention in classes for terms of five years 
each, and who carry out a plan of chapter visita¬ 
tion which still obtains. 


President of the Council. 

Brother Bridgman, who had been elected to the; 
executive council in 1877, became president of the 
council in 1883 and continued in office until his 
his death on Sept. 24, 1924. This period of 47 years 
of continuous service is without parallel in the his¬ 
tory of College fraternities. Long terms of service 
have, however, been characteristic of our executive 
body; for example, that of fourteen years of Benjamin 
H. Bayliss, Delta 1865; of seventeen years of Fran¬ 
cis S. Bangs, Lambda 1878; of seventeen years of 
William M. Kingsley, Delta 1883; of twenty years 
of George Henry Fox, Upsilon 1867; of twenty-three 
years of George S. Coleman, Xi 1876. These are a 
few of those who served with Bridgman at various 
periods. Such terms of service are high tribute to 
the congeniality, dependability, good judgment and 
working capacity of the man we are now honoring. 

The speaker first met Brother Bridgman in 1893 
while on his way to the Dartmouth convention. A 
call was made in Brooklyn at the office of the 
Brooklyn Standard Union. As the delegate of the 
Phi and the bearer of the Wisconsin petition for 
the future Rho Chapter, I crossed on the old Fulton 
Ferry, like so many hundred Psi U undergraduates 
and alumni, before and since, to the sanctum of 
this wise and sympathetic man. 

From the impressions of that first visit came a 
lifelong friendship. Brother Bridgman approached 
the Wisconsin subject seriously but with simplicity 
and directness. He gave encouragement without 
promises. “The convention will decide," he said, 
“and will doubtless ask for all the facts.” He would 
merely suggest that the matter be presented accur¬ 
ately and briefly; especially would he suggest un¬ 
reserved frankness. 

Bridgman of 1893 the Bridgman of 1924. 

The Bridgman of 1893, and doubtless of 1883, was 
the Bridgman of 1924—even in appearance and bear¬ 
ing. Dignified and modest; simple and sympathetic; 
direct and encouraging—the annual convention was 
supreme and would want all the facts. It was these 
characteristics and this attitude that challenged the 
admiration, respect and veneration of thousands of 
undergraduates and brought them. 

As the presiding office, first at the Chi in 1884 and 
last at the Chi in 1924, and at practically all the 
conventions within memory, he solved countless 
parliamentary problems with a patience and impar¬ 
tiality which won him affection and reverence and 
a fraternity-wide loyalty that transcends words or 
record. 

“The convention will decide and will doubtless 
ask for all the facts!” Here is the creed of the 
Bridgman administration of Psi Upsilon for nearly 
fifty years. A man of strong character, readiness 
and resourcefulness, he administered his office and 
led his associates of council after council to viewing 
Psi Upsilon through and for the undergraduate 
member. He was ever young and fresh in spirit. 
He never lost his undergraduate point of view. For 


59 


preceAc:nt, as well as in reminiscence, he turned to 
his student days. No one can read those delight¬ 
ful letters he wrote from the Newport, nor the 
tributes paid him by its officers and cadets, without 
feeling pride for that stout old Psi U heart which 
carried the ripe experience of his eighty years and 
the spirit of his boyhood to this “floating school,” 
as he described it. His keen eye discerned the prac¬ 
tical advantages of the schoolship to American 
shipping. 

Here, then, was an idealist who was intensely 
practical. No one could uphold his ideals more cou¬ 
rageously, yet Brother Bridgman’s straight thinking 
always led to practical decisions. The publication 
of four catalogues of four song books and the re¬ 
vival of The Diamond were practical gains achieved 
under his guidance. 

Genius for Quick Decision, 

Members of the executive council, year after year, 
have seen the secretary’s papers and correspondence 
grow to a volume little dreamed of by the fraternity. 
Problems seem fairly to spring from the ground. 
The rapidity with which these were analyzed, pre¬ 
cedents cited and solutions briefly provided by Bro¬ 
ther Bridgman frequently left the rest of us in a 
state of bewilderment. Nor were there any tele¬ 
phone messages next day suggesting some quali¬ 
fications or amendment. He had a genius for quick 
decision and for condensed correspondence. 

Seldom did an issue arise in which his common 
sense solution did not point the way to unanimous 
action. Such an instance, however, arose fifteen 
years ago when the Inter-Fraternity Conference was 
formed. Psi Upsilon for a long time politely de¬ 
clined to join the movement, on the ground that the 
convention alone could decide. The discussions of 
this question in the council were memorable, for 
Brother Bridgman reviewed the whole history of 
Psi Upsilon, and on these he based his own opposi¬ 
tion to entangling alliances of kind. When finally 
the convention, after several years’ consideration, 
voted to join the conference, Bridgman gallantly 
headed the delegation that attended from Psi Up¬ 
silon. The very first session disclosed that the 
Conference was, for the most part, dealing with old 
problems that Psi Upsilon had solved years ago 
and with new problems which were more easily 
solved under the guidance of our own tradition. 
The vindication of Bridgman’s position was com¬ 
plete, but, characteristically, he made no comment. 
Psi Upsilon is still a member of the Conference— 
for the convention has decided. 

Brother Bridgman was practical, even to the ex¬ 
tent of abhoring all but the most meagre machinery 
of organization. Frequently he quoted the signifi¬ 
cant words of James B. Angell, Sigma, 1849, “Let 
us all remember that there is not much abiding 
power in organigation merely. A society is always 
just what its members make it by their character; 
nothing more, nothing less.” Always he was fear¬ 
ful that the executive council might fall into some 


usurpation of the powers of the convention or of 
the chapters. He wished to avoid even the appear¬ 
ance of the council being a super-power. He wanted 
the undergraduates—the active members—through 
the convention—to maintain their supremacy, with 
merely the friendly guidance of the executive coun¬ 
cil, leaving stern measures to the chapter’s own 
alumni organization. He regarded Psi Upsilon as 
a pure democracy calculated to develop the under¬ 
graduate citizen, and he depended on the nearby 
alumni to meet their responsibility without appeals 
from anyone. With the growth of the fraternity— 
there are about 13,000 living members—the relations 
of the executive council to alumni and their as¬ 
sociations because of increasing interest. Here, 
again, there developed a policy of co-operation, 
rather in the way of good officers than of guidance. 

Always on the Travel. 

With great zest Brother Bridgman entered upon 
the plans of the 1907 convention for annual visits by 
members of the council to each chapter. Year after 
year he went to the chapters on his list and then 
picked others from the delinquents. He was always 
traveling. On the was to Chicago, he would say, 
he could easily run down to the Omicron, which he 
had installed in 1910. After the Amherst initiation 
he would have an opportunity to visit Delta Delta at 
Williams, a chapter which always had his special 
interest. And so his list of visits would enlarge. 
On his way to Hawaii in 1916, he installed the Theta 
Theta at the University of Washington. And then 
there were the other college celebrations which he 
frequently attended as an official delegate from the 
Board of Regents of the University of the State of 
New York. A few days before he sailed on the 
Newport, he made his last college pilgrimage to 
the Centennial Commencement of Kenyon College, 
and, of course, arrived just in time for the Iota cele¬ 
bration which brought together the largest attend¬ 
ance in the history of the chapter. Such activity, 
year in and year out, in the service of the fraternity 
made us little realize that this great Psi U was any¬ 
where near his eightieth birthday. 

When Bridgman was initiated the fraternity was 
composed of three chapters, the Iota being the baby 
chapter. When he came to the Executive Council, 
the number had reached seventeen, the Chi having 
succeeded in lota’s laurels. When he laid down his 
office the roll had grown to twenty-seven, with the 
Nu, at the University of Toronto, in the seat of 
honor, the Chi approaching its semi-centennial and 
the Iota nearing its three score and ten. Nearly all 
of the eleven chapters since the founding of the Chi 
were instituted by Brother Bridgman under the au¬ 
thority of the Executive Council. 

Bbidgman a Many-Sided Man. 

Occasionally our active members are inclined to 
spurn student and civic activities and to rest upon 
the prestige of their fraternity membership. Con¬ 
trast Brother Bridgman’s career! The auspicious 
start in freshman declamation, senior oration. Phi 


60 


Beta Kappa and as secretary; president of the 
American Newspaper Publishers Association, tire¬ 
less co-operator with Peary, explorer of the North; 
representative of scientific societies at International 
Congresses, scaler of Mesa Encantada, investigator 
of the Congo Free State, traveler and observer in 
Bulgaria and the Near East, member and officer of 
geographical societies. Honorary Fellow, University 
Regent—to this many-sided Bridgman his Alma 
Mater paid us its highest tribute with its honorary 
degree of Doctor of Laws in 1920. 

Among the many editorial tributes, that of the 
New York “Times” will find wide appreciation 
throughout Psi Upsilon. 

“Mr. Bridgman was a citizen of a pattern to set 
before both youth and maturity. He not only did 
particular work in the world and did it exceedingly 
well; he also took an interest in everything that 
should concern the human mind. He did not fear 
to go beyond the old verges and push out into the 
unknown. He kept to the end a sympathy with 
children and youth, and in their behalf he gave him¬ 
self to the bettering of the educational conditions in 
the State. His last voyage, in company with youth, 
is a fit symbol of the whole life of this man who, 
with uncommon modesty, great congenialty and an 
adventurous courage, illustrated to youth the best 
that one generation has to give the next,” 

This is Founders’ Day, Nov. 24. Nine years from 
to-night we shall be celebrating the centennial of 
Psi Upsilon. Our thoughts naturally turn to our 
fellowship—what is the secret of its success, what 
insures its vitality, what is its mission? 

We are fortunate in having Brother Bridgman’s 
answer to these questions, given on his eightieth 
birthday. May 20 last. It is contained in a reply to 
a letter of birthday greeting. 

This was the greeting: 

“It is seldom that youth is able to throw off its 
cloak of shortsightedness long enough to profit by 
the lives and experiences of the elders. Most of 
us must live through the experience in order to 
acquire the ultimate point of view. Now and then, 
however, there arises in some group a life, com¬ 
bined with long experience and service, which por¬ 
trays so obviously those ideals and thoughts which 
are particularly close to the younger members of 
the group, that this annual barrier is broken and 
knowledge of or contact with that life invariably 
makes for better men of the younger in the group. 
We of the Omega feel thankful that we should have 
the privilege of membership in a society which is 
worthy of such service and thought as you have 
given,” 

This was the reply: 

“I take no credit for my years, nor for my service 
to Psi Upsilon, though I’ll admit I’ve taken con¬ 
siderable pleasure in both. Neither is it timely nor 
becoming for one to speak in detail. If the force 
of example, of personal contact, to which you so 
kindly refer, are correctly interpreted and appraised. 


that is still more source of satisfaction and en¬ 
couragement, for I have always held that while Psi 
U might make good fellows, it didn’t need supermen 
to show it the way. Harmony, unity and real living 
brotherhood—no other is worth having—it has al¬ 
ways seemed to me are attained and retained by 
actions rather than words, by being rather than 
pretending, or telling others or permitting them to 
tell us what to do. So I hope we may all go on to 
greater and better things than even our glorious 
past has revealed.” 

In these letters we see the older and the younger 
generation drawn togther by the ties of Psi Upsilon, 
ordinarily finding expression only in the glance of 
the eye and the grip of the hand. 

Loyal and Devoted Son Gone. 

Finally, it should be set down that hundreds of 
telegrams and letters of condolence and s)mipathy 
—they began to seem thousands—came to Mrs. 
Bridgman, until she was left so overwhelmed by the 
honor and beauty of it all that she dared not think 
of her personal loneliness, but joined her tribute to 
ours, since his hour had come, by dwelling on what 
she was sure would be to Mr. Bridgman a great 
and totally unexpected joy. 

In the passing of Herbert L. Bridgman, Psi Up¬ 
silon has lost its exemplar, a loyal and devoted son 
who held the respect, admiration and affection of 
the Psi Upsilon family as these have rarely given to 
any member. Let us carry on in his spirit and, in 
his words, “To greater and better things than even 
our glorious past has revealed.” 

Letters and Telegrams. 

The Rev. Charles Henry Arndt, rector of Christ 
Episcopal Church, of Germantown, Pa., offered 
prayer after President Butler had called the 
fraternity together. 

Herbert S. Houston, editor of ‘“Our World,” and 
at one time editor of the “Review of Reviews,” read 
a number of letters and telegrams of regret from 
Psi U men who were unable to attend: Among 
them were those from Chauncey M. Depew, William 
H. Taft, Thomas F. Davies, Bishop of Western 
Massachusettes; Bishop Ethelbert Talbot of Bethle¬ 
hem, Pa., and Bishop Thomas H. Darlington, of 
Harrisburg, Pa. There were also telegrams of sym¬ 
pathy from all Psi Upsilon chapters. 

Among the messages sent were the following: 

Chief Justice Taft—-“Mr. Bridgman is entitled to 
a most affectionate memorial, and I am sure he will 
have it on Founders Day throughout the whole 
fraternity.” 

Ex-Senator Depew—“Herbert Bridgman was one 
of the most loyal of friends and one of the most 
charming companions, and I had intimate relations 
with him during the whole of his journalistic careei. 
He will be remembered for many remarkable things 
he did in his long and honorable career.” 

Bishop Ethelbert Talbot, Presiding Bishop of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church—“I shall always think 
of Herbert L. Bridgman with affection, and it is 


61 


a source of deep regret that absence in the South 
prevents my joining in the deserved tribute to him.” 

A minute in memory of Dr. Bridgman was of¬ 
fered by George Henry Fox, Upsilon '57, which, 
after having been read by Edward L. Stevens, Chi 
'99, was adopted by a rising vote. 

Dr. Arndt pronounced the benediction after the 
singing of the fraternity song, “The Day is Ended.” 

Among the Brooklyn members of the fraternity 
present were ex-Justice Isaac Franklin Russell, 
George W. Giddings, Frederick W. Hinrichs, E. R., 
and F. B. Stone. 

Following is the minute adopted: 

Minute entered at memorial meeting held Found¬ 
ers Day at Lotus Club, under auspices of executive 
council, on motion of George Henry Fox, Upsilon 
'67, and Edward L. Stevens, Chi '99. 

“We the members of Psi Upsilon, are gathered 
on this day, dedicated to the founders of our 
fraternity in commemoration of their first meeting, 
ninety-one years ago, to honor the memory of our 
brother, Herbert Lawrence Bridgman, Gamma '66, 
for forty-seven years (more than half of Psi Up- 
silon’s existence) a member of its executive council, 
and since 1883 continuously its president. 

“For more than forty-one years. Brother Bridgman 
guided the destinies of Psi Upsilon. To no man, 
living or dead, does our fraternity owe so much. 
While our founders, when they instituted Psi Up¬ 
silon, laid its foundation broad and deep, they little 
dreamed of the wonderful building which would 


rise upon those foundations. The worth and beauty 
of that structure are largely due to Brother Bridg¬ 
man. Psi Upsilon, as we know it to-day, is the ex¬ 
pression of his character; so it is fitting that, with 
the founders of our fraternity, we now honor him, 
its moulder. 

“Quick to reach the heart of things, he wrought 
essentials only into Psi Upsilon’s structure. Des¬ 
pising empty form, he kept Psi U free from red tape 
and formalism. Democratic in all his instincts, he 
saw to it that our chapter should be self-reliant and 
the convention of our chapters, rather than the ex¬ 
ecutive council, the supreme power. 

“His vigor, both of body and spirit, was inspiring. 
He held firmly to his opinions, though in the minor¬ 
ity, and rarely was he proven mistaken; yet, de¬ 
spite this tenacity, his enemies were few, while his 
friends were legion. 

“We loved Brother Bridgman. He was at once 
strong and kindly, manly and modest, wise and 
charitable. He held up to reverence the finest tra¬ 
ditions of the past. He sought increase of know¬ 
ledge for the benefit of the future. He loved youth 
and ever met young men with sympathetic under¬ 
standing. He was- a good citizen and a good friend. 
To us he was the embodiment of Psi Upsilon’s fin¬ 
est ideals. 

“To his sorrowing wife and family our tender 
sympathy goes forth. Their loss is heavy. We, too, 
will miss him deeply, but we retain, as a beacon to 
guide our fraternity through all its future, the last¬ 
ing memory of his wise and loyal leadership.” 


62 


i|prbfrt U. Iribgman 

(From the funeral address of the Rev. Howard Dean French, Pastor 
of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn.) 


My friends, it is a grave and serious matter when 
any useful personality is suddenly removed from the 
interests and activities of life. Especially when a 
man of varied gifts and of large affairs is taken is 
the loss heavy. Such a man touches life at so many 
points; his business concerns, his institutional ac¬ 
tivities, his many friends, his inner circle of inti¬ 
mates, kin folk, loved ones ... It is futile to 
say that the vacant place is filled and that life goes 
on as before; such a place is never filled; life is 
changed for all time for many a heart. As a peb¬ 
ble thrown into a pool spreads its ripples to the 
furthest shore, so any life which touches other 
lives starts influences which reach eternity. 

When a life is lived to its full, when its poten¬ 
tialities come to large expression, then what an in¬ 
fluence is wielded upon a community’s spirit, upon 
a nation, upon a world. So many of us keep in 
such a narrow channel; some few let their in¬ 
fluence prevade the globe. When such a spirit leaves 
its earthly activity, then indeed is the loss grievous, 
then indeed is life changed. That is why the sud¬ 
den news of this great citizen’s passing shocked 
the city and made many a man feel lost, bereaved, 
poor. 

“When he fell—, he went down 
As a lordly cedar, green with boughs. 

Goes down with a great shout upon the hills 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.” 

I am not here to give a catalogue of the years 
of this active and many-sided man, nor do you de¬ 
sire me to. Rather would I leave with you some 
impression of his spirit. His deeds we cannot 
duplicate; but his spirit may live in us and make us 
better, greater men. 

One of the central characteristics of his career is 
adventure. His was not the empty recklessness which 
dares for the sake of thrills, but that faith which 
longs to penetrate the unknown that its treasures 
may be revealed for human enrichment. It stimu¬ 
lated him as a student with a hungry mind; it ani¬ 
mated him as a journalist with a passion for truth; 
it inspired him as a traveler with a constructive 
curiosity. He had in him the adventuring of his 
Pilgrim forebears who dared the chartless sea, not 
for the sake of daring, but for progress. His 
hungering spirit could not be stilled by tradition, 
hemmed in by ruts, held by humdrum. What lesser 
spirits feared, he dared with dauntless exultation. 


He was the spirit of Columbus of whom the poet 
speaks: 

“Behind him lay the gray Azores, 

Behind the Gates of Hercules; 

Before him not the ghost of shores. 

Before him only shoreless seas. 

The good mate said: ‘Now must we pray. 

For lo! the very stars are gone. 

Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?' 

‘Why, say, “Sail on! sail on! and on!”’ 

“They sailed, 'rhey sailed. Then spoke the 
mate: 

‘This mad sea shows its teeth to-night. 

He curls his lip, he lies in wait. 

With lifted teeth, as if to bite! 

Brave Admiral, say but one good word: 

What shall we do when hope is gone?’ 

The words leapt like a leaping sword: 

‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!’ 

“Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck. 

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night 

Of all dark nights! And then a speck— 

A light! a light! a light! a light! 

It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! 

It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn. 

He gained a world; he gave that world 
Its grandest lesson: ‘On! Sail on!’’’ 

In such a day as this, when business and politics, 
social customs and habits, are in a state of flux, 
we can ill afford to lose such men. Who will fill 
their places? And this man’s eyes were gazing not 
only outward but upward. Not only the new, but 
the better. It is one thing to long for the better 
day; it is another to dedicate one’s life to its achieve¬ 
ment. The first may be but dreaming until the 
second with its devotion makes the vision possible 
of realization. 

Those who knew Mr. Bridgman well say they 
never thought of him as old. It is not surprising, 
for this spirit of adventure is the very essence of 
youth; it was the secret of his influence upon the 
young, the spring of his understanding of them. 
Age is not measured by years but by heartbeats. It 
drove him to sea on that last voyage that youth 
might be helped. Oh, for a faith that dares the 
higher service for men! 

Now his life has made the great adventure, has 
explored those shores that touch eternity. With what 
confidence, what eager courage, he would embark! 
How his soul would leap to this new immortal day! 
So we can leave him—a worker still, in causes he 
had loved; but now filled with the vision eternal. 

“Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 

And the hunter home from the hill.” 


63 




A wonderful passing, the splendor of which may 
be seen not once in a hundred years, that of Herbert 
L. Bridgman: the sudden, painless end, with tender 
hands about him and love’s light in his eyes; the 
serene sail of six days toward his home and coun¬ 
try, straight into the hearts of men rising up sim¬ 
ultaneously to do him honor. Like the rh 3 rthm of 
another ocean were those electric waves carrying 
the tidings from east to west, and on to the capitals 
of Europe, until West became East again in the 
warm human response. 

Then the service at the Church of the Pilgrims, 
with the clergyman and his good, pointed word; the 
beautiful singer in her thrilling contralto faithfully 
fulfilling his last wish; many important men of 
business gladly giving him so much of their precious 
midday time; and at last those beloved Newport 
cadets guarding him and his flag with dim eyes 
from the house of worship to the grave—to the 
“taps” which always so melted him in life but which 
he never dreamed would be his own in death. 

Our friend Zona Gale voices it all as only one 
who is dear to you can voice such things: 

“You have so much to be grateful for. I am 
thinking of the editorial in The Standard Union, of 
the truth of what it said, and of the solace to you, 
to feel that everyone felt it and feels it; and of how 
much it must mean to you to have it all so phrased 
and set down by one close to him, who had worked 


with him over a long period, and knew him 
through and through, as only workers together can 
know one another. The writer thought of so much 
to say that everyone knew was true, and yet is so 
rarely expressed. How much it is as he would have 
wished it: that absorption and intentness to the last, 
that joyous flight and fellowship, and then, no pain— 
nothing but the sea. There is something epic about 
that way of going; the three months in far places, 
the familiar letters coming back to the home 
friends, the keen summarizing—^the great farewell 
sweep of that last journey; the ceasing, like that, in 
a moment, and the majestic return. It is the way 
Ulysses might have died. I was amazed at his age, 
as everyone must have been. How much more he 
gave to and took out of life than most do; how he 
made something picturesque and useful out of all 
his routines. Well, all this is some comfort, but not 
enough. Nothing is enough. But I feel certain that 
the mystery is so much richer than we even hope to 
have it. How they must wish that we were sensi¬ 
tized enough to know—more.” 

Another intuitive friend adds that now he never 
thinks of him as going, but always as coming, to 
welcome us alongside; to bid us sail with him into 
that “vast ahoy” which so allures and yet so con¬ 
founds our limited intelligence—except for the faith 
divine. 

Helen Bartlett Bridgman. 









